Feasting on Dreams: Volume Two
by analect
Summary: With the Fifth Blight blackening the horizon, Merien Tabris has a lot to learn and - if she and her companions are to have any hope of survival - she'd better do it quickly. But the road to Redcliffe is paved with secrets... and impossible choices.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This follows on, weirdly enough, from the first volume of Feasting on Dreams, which runs through my take on the City Elf origin up to the aftermath of Ostagar. Thanks to all who read and reviewed, and I hope you enjoy the next instalment of Merien's continuing journey. If you haven't read the first volume, it isn't necessary, but you can find it listed on my profile. Enjoy! ~ana_

_Disclaimer: As ever, I own nothing you recognise._

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**Feasting on Dreams: The Book of Merien Tabris**

**VOL. 2: ON ****SCOR****CHED RED EARTH**

I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.  
~ Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_

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**CHAPTER ONE**

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It was going to be a long walk to Lothering, and the Korcari Wilds were every bit as inhospitable as I remembered. The damp and the cold permeated everything, a thin film of wet clinging to each branch and vine, and the smell of dank earth rising to greet me with every soggy footfall.

We trudged on into the night, no one saying much. Alistair was still silent, his face closed in and his eyes barely seeming to focus on the path ahead of him. I wanted to talk to him, to try and… well, offer some kind of comfort, I suppose, though I didn't know how. Was it enough to say that I'd lost people too? Probably not. The thing about grief is how it convinces you that your own experience is completely unique, no matter what anyone else has lived through. Selfish, in its way, perhaps.

Still, he worried me. The horrors of Ostagar were fresh and raw for both of us, but I remembered how he'd taken charge at the Tower of Ishal, and the look on his face when the men who'd so willingly followed him started dying.

Then, of course, there were the other losses. Finding out about Duncan, the king, and the rest of the Grey Wardens the way he had must have been difficult. He would bear guilt, and shame, and all other manner of scars that weren't entirely rational, but were no less painful for it. Wondering if he could have run faster, or been cleverer, or stopped it happening in the first place… and so forth, I imagined, and tried to blink the thoughts away.

Maybe it was part of the reason for his obvious antipathy towards Morrigan. Easier to blame the messenger—or the messenger's daughter, in this case—than chew on the bitter fruit of the message itself… not to mention the whole templar thing.

Back in the safe, stone walls of the army camp, he'd told me joining the Chantry hadn't been his idea. I'd given it little thought at the time; just assumed it was something the lower gentry did with spare sons they either couldn't be bothered, or couldn't afford, to marry off or equip as knights. Alistair certainly didn't seem the pious type, though he clearly harboured a deep-rooted suspicion of magic. I couldn't say I blamed him for that, though I reminded myself how little I really knew about my comrade.

Strange, when I thought of how many times he'd saved my life at the tower. Though large parts of the battle were lost to me, choked off in smoke-filled smears of memory, I remembered that. Him, hauling me up off a blood-slicked floor, and shoving me behind him when the arrows flew, and the darkspawn poured through the doors, intent on ripping us to pieces.

I'd never seen anyone fight like that. Whether Alistair had gained his training through the Chantry or the Grey Wardens, it was impressive—although, looking at him now, it was hard to believe he could actually swing a sword.

He'd barely spoken since we left Flemeth's hut, and almost everything he'd said before that had been bile and fury about Loghain's treachery and how we had to bring him to account for what he'd done. That… or sniping at Morrigan.

I hadn't expected that. They were like a couple of children, flinging mud at each other across the cobbles.

He didn't trust her—and, I had to admit, neither did I—but was it really sensible to make it so obvious?

I watched her as we plodded through rut after muddy rut, the trees dripping and creaking all around us. Just as when she'd led us out of the Wilds before, the night of the Joining, she took turns and twists through the trees that were hard to even see if you didn't know they were there. She never looked back to check we were still following, or to warn us about low-hanging boughs or brambles, or the inevitable horrible scuttling things that seemed to keep running over my feet.

I'd never liked bugs. Back home, we had far too many infestations of things, from fleas, lice and bedbugs, right up to woodworm, cockroaches, and those beetles that used to eat the ends out of timbers. Landlords would never pay to have them treated, even when the ceiling beams fell in, as had happened to a cousin of Father's once. That had been a memorable winter; nine of us, crammed in under our roof, with Aunt Elina's new baby screaming all night on an empty belly. Two months, they boarded with us, until they could find a new place.

Funny, how memories like that poke out at you from unexpected corners of the past. Here I was, slogging along in this forsaken wilderness—in armour that didn't fit and was riddled with arrow-holes and tears, and stained with the blood of horrific creatures that, until recently, I hadn't even believed were really real—and I should have been completely consumed with thoughts of what lay ahead of us. Alistair and I were the only surviving Grey Wardens left in Ferelden. We were facing the cold reality of a new Blight which, thanks to Teyrn Loghain, was coming at the worst possible moment… and all I could think about was the winter there was a plague of rot beetle in the tenements.

The ridiculous thing was that, now I _was _thinking about it, I found that I missed the alienage more than ever. I ached for the comfortable familiarity of worn wood, crumbling mortar, and the shadows of Denerim's skyline, with its patchwork of parapets and towers.

But we kept walking and, every time the breeze caught at Morrigan's robes, I thought of the sound of wet washing flapping on lines strung between cracked wooden window frames.

It made sense to follow her until we got out of the Wilds, though Alistair hadn't seemed able to let the matter pass without a muttered comment about lion's dens and, as he put it, waking up dead in time for breakfast.

I said nothing, not prepared to stand buffer between the two of them. Besides, part of me doubted his bluster was all to do with ambivalence towards mages. I supposed it was only to be expected. Her manner might have been more than a touch abrasive but, for all her unknown and potentially dangerous qualities, Morrigan was still a woman. That, at least, was undeniable.

It was in every detail of her appearance: the luxuriant dark hair, twisted into a wild knot on the crown of her head, the livid bands of shadow that graced her pale, proud face… the thick, tactile fabrics of her robes—feathers, furs, and leather set against soft, white skin—and the generous curves beneath them. If _I'd_ noticed the plunging neckline and the barely contained, swelling bosom, augmented with glittering jewellery, it a pretty safe bet that her assets hadn't escaped Alistair's attention either. And, as far as I knew, all the bickering could have been some peculiar human courtship ritual.

I smiled to myself at that thought, as yet more muddy water seeped into my boots.

"What?"

"Hm?" I blinked, realising that he was looking at me quizzically. "Oh… er, nothing. Just thinking."

Something wet and stagnant dripped off the trees that arched above us. Alistair wrinkled his nose.

"Right. Fond thoughts about decent food and dry socks, yes?"

I smiled, glad to catch a glimpse of the man I'd met at the army camp, still there somewhere behind those tired, dull eyes.

"Mm. Clean clothes," I added wistfully.

"Sausages," Alistair volunteered, gazing into the distance. "And cheese. I miss cheese."

I chuckled. "Anyone would think you hadn't eaten in a week."

"Well?" He quirked an eyebrow. "Would _you_ call army rations 'eating'?"

He had a point. Back home, we were used to the realities of hunger, but there was a difference between having too little to start with, and doing whatever it was that the mess hall servers had done to perfectly good provisions.

I opened my mouth to reply, but Morrigan's voice cut across the damp air before I had a chance.

"You two may wish to save your salivations for later. There are still plenty of darkspawn we shall have to get you past before we can rest tonight."

"But… the horde will have moved on, won't it?" I furrowed my brow. "I mean, I know we're not in much shape to fight, but there shouldn't be—"

"Hah!"

She gave a crisp laugh, then turned and looked back at us, her expression shifting slowly from enquiry to something rather more self-satisfied.

"Truly? You haven't told her, then?"

"Er, told me what?"

"My, my…." Morrigan shook her head. "How lax! Do the Grey Wardens teach their raw recruits nothing? How _do _they expect you to survive?"

"What does she mean?" I looked sharply at Alistair. "What—"

"All right, all right." He sighed wearily. "Look… do you remember me saying that Grey Wardens can… sense the darkspawn?"

"Ye-es," I said slowly, not sure I liked where this was going.

"Right. Well, it means that, in return, _they _can sense _us_."

"Ah."

"Yes." A weak, humourless smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Just one of the things you, er, should have been told. _Would_ have been told. It's… normally not so much a case of just throwing you in at the deep end and… well, you know. After the battle, Duncan would've—"

Alistair's voice tightened, and he broke off, blinking hard. I nodded as sympathetically as I could.

"I understand. There's… time, anyway," I added hesitantly.

There wasn't, frankly. We were pushing ourselves hard, meaning to leave the Wilds behind us by dawn and make for Lothering, then Redcliffe, as quickly as possible. I still had it in my head that the Grey Warden reinforcements would be coming from Orlais and—if Alistair was right about this Arl Eamon, and we could expect his support—our job was to pass on the information we had, and the treaties, and let the experts take over.

If I'd known then even a half of what we would end up confronting, I would probably have fainted, face down in the mud.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Some way on, towards the edge of the Wilds, we came across the deserted husk of a Chasind village, the abandoned huts perched on their strange wooden stilts like despondent jesters. There was no sign of the inhabitants but, comfortingly, no sign of any bodies or bloodshed, either.

"They've fled the darkspawn, probably," Alistair said, casting a wary glance at the tree line. "Who knows how far north the horde's moved already."

Morrigan turned in a slow circle, almost as if she was sniffing the air.

"The place seems empty enough for now," she observed. "'Twould be sensible to see if there's anything left here we can use."

"What?" Alistair scoffed incredulously. "You're suggesting we do a quick spot of breaking and entering while we've got the chance?"

She looked coolly at the pair of us—standing there in our wrecked armour and bloodstained clothes—and shrugged dismissively.

"I care not what you do. Wait until we reach Lothering, if you desire, and purchase whatever supplies you require there."

I sighed, and dropped my pack to the ground, where it landed with a damp thud. "She has a point, Alistair. We haven't any money, anyway."

He gave me a disconsolate look, and I wasn't sure whether it came more from offended morals, or the fact that Morrigan had made a valid argument.

"Great," he said bleakly. "'Join the Grey Wardens. See the world. Loot the homes of the destitute.'"

I shot him a reproachful look. "Whoever lived here, it looks like they left by choice. They probably didn't leave much of value behind and, anyway, you don't think _we're_ just a tiny bit destitute ourselves?"

He looked me up and down, and there must have been something amusing about it—the mud, the bits of twig, the ill-fitting armour falling off my skinny frame—because a small smile curled his mouth.

"You could say that, I suppose."

"If it eases your pricked consciences," Morrigan called, raising her voice as she stepped into the first hut, "we could always leave Alistair behind as payment. Who knows, _someone _might find a use for him. If they ever return, that is."

He snorted and, looking at me, narrowed his eyes mischievously. "Maybe we could make a break for it while she's occupied…."

"Only if she gets distracted by something shiny," I muttered, and we were both trying to disguise sniggers when she ducked out of the hut, carrying an armful of grubby hides.

I'd noticed that about Morrigan; for a woman who'd allegedly been raised in the fierce isolation of the Wilds, she was very particular over her looks. Her heavy necklaces and thick, silver bangles might at first glance have seemed to be tokens of arcane significance—there were certainly more than a few odd runes and sigils on show—but I smelled more than that.

Back home, girls used to fight like dogs over a good piece of dress fabric or a simple bit of jewellery and, though I might not have had much myself, I knew a gewgaw when I saw one.

We set to work, anyway, and the Chasind huts did eventually yield a few useful items, but not much more than blankets and a couple of cooking pots. I'd been hoping for something waterproof and maybe a pair of boots that might fit, but it seemed the Wilders had taken almost everything with them.

Still, it made for somewhere reasonably comfortable to stop for a couple of hours' rest. A little eerie, perhaps, but no worse than trying to bivouac under the trees. Nights in the Wilds were close, black, and very cold, and we couldn't risk lighting much of a fire. The wood was all too damn damp to get going properly, for a start.

Nevertheless, it was pleasant enough. The anaemic little fire's guttering was comforting in its way, and Alistair and I sat beside it, watching Morrigan prowl about by the trees.

"I think she's a shapeshifter," he said. "Watch. Any minute, she'll turn into a wolf or something, and bite someone's arm off."

I stifled a yawn. The first few moments of waking in Flemeth's hut and, for once, actually not feeling bruised, battered and exhausted seemed a long way off.

"People can do that? Mages?"

He was rubbing absently at the gold ring he wore on the forefinger of his left hand. At first I'd taken it for a signet or something but, now, with the firelight picking out the runes engraved into its bevelled surface, I could see it was no family crest.

"Mm," he said. "I've heard stories. It's not that uncommon among the Wilders. Their mages aren't like the Circle. It's a… different way of thinking, I suppose."

I shivered lightly. All I really knew of the Circle was what people said in the alienage; that elves and humans were raised the same there, no distinction made between them, and if that sounded too good to be true, it probably was.

To our suspicious eyes, the promise of equality—which probably wasn't real anyway, when you got down to it—wasn't worth the terrible act of taking a child from its home and family. The parallels with my current situation were not lost on me, and I grasped for something to take my mind off it.

"What is that?" I asked, nodding at Alistair's ring.

"Hm? This? Oh." He flexed his hand. "It's a worry token. I found it after one of the first skirmishes we had with the darkspawn in the foothills. See? They cast them in Orzammar. You're supposed to… think of your troubles, and the runes take them away. Return them to the Stone, or something. I don't know."

He obviously did; he was just embarrassed talking about it… or talking about it to me, at least. Still, the idea appealed to me, and I smiled.

"Does it work?"

"Right now? With the Blight and everything?" He smirked. "I could do with a couple extra."

The fire crackled softly, consuming one of the last bits of dry wood we had to feed it.

"I, er, noticed you wear a… a ring," Alistair said, gaze slipping back to the flames.

Unthinkingly, I touched my fingertips to the thin gold band that hung from the same chain as the pendant I'd received after the Joining. My thumb rubbed at the edge of it, the smooth surface warmed by my skin. Thoughts of blue eyes and tentative smiles returned to needle me, the familiar, slimy weight of guilt tugging at my chest.

"Just a… reminder," I said. "Of, uh, someone who didn't make it this far."

Alistair looked curiously at me, and I supposed batting his own words back at him like that was a bit trite, but I didn't have any of my own with which to explain.

Telling would have meant having to say what I'd done—what I'd _seen_ done—that day at the arl's estate, and I didn't want that. If my old life was over, let it lie undisturbed. Better that than thinking about it… and thinking about all the things that might have happened to the people I loved since I'd left Denerim.

For a moment, I almost wanted to pull the ring off and throw it into the fire.

Yes, it was a reminder, and one I very nearly hated. I was tired of being gnawed at by blame, sick of resenting my survival.

"I'm… sorry," Alistair said softly.

I glanced at him, some non-committal response already halfway to my lips, but the look on his face knocked the words from me. He genuinely was, it seemed—though probably more from his own grief than on my behalf. All the same, I was slightly unnerved. Aside from Duncan, I'd never sat and talked with a human like this before, and it made _me_ feel like the judgemental one.

"Thanks," I mumbled, and frowned uneasily at the dirt.

_**~o~O~o~**_

When dawn came—delicate fingers of rose streaking through the bruised, cloudy sky—we gathered anything we could use, or possibly sell, and headed on. By the time the sun had fully risen, we were almost out of the Wilds.

The air seemed to smell sweeter, and the mossy dankness of the forest gave way to wider, open spaces, unfolding into broad swathes of farmland. The rocky rises flattened away, and were replaced by softly undulating fields. The trees changed, too; no more thick, dense ranks of pine, but wide, airy oaks and beeches, all green- and gold-topped leaves, rippling in the breeze.

There were very few buildings, just farmsteads and barns nestled in the curves of the land. It was pretty, I supposed, but unsettling. The sky seemed too big and too open, and I felt vulnerable with all that space around me. I was also fairly convinced my feet were nothing but two giant blisters, wallowing in the boggy interior of my leaky, ill-fitting boots.

We followed a dirt track, pitted with wagon ruts, that curved alongside the boundary of a farm. The green stalks of some kind of crop waved lazily in the sunlight, and I was wondering idly what the grain was when Alistair halted, frowning.

"Did you hear something?"

I listened, but made out nothing beyond the soft rustle of the wind in the fields, and shook my head.

Morrigan tapped her foot impatiently. "When you have quite finished…."

Alistair shrugged. "I just thought—"

"Ah! Then perhaps _that _is what the noise was. The creak of rusted machinery, barely used, as it groans into life."

"Oh, shut up."

I dropped to a crouch, listening harder. He was right: there was something, and it was growing louder. A rhythmic, scratchy sound, like… something running.

A blur flashed through the undergrowth ahead of us and rounded the bend in the path. Definitely something running. Something brindled, and barking and—

"Wait!" I called, as Morrigan raised her staff.

The dog screeched to a halt a few feet away from me. It was a mabari, its short coat spattered with mud and what looked like blood, and its massive jaws open in a low-grade, grumbling growl. The hound bayed, his powerful forelegs lifting off the ground as he rose up with each deep-throated bark.

He turned and, ragged little ears clamped to his flat skull, pointed at the deserted strip of farmland ahead, hackles rising all the way along his spine.

"Oh, good," Alistair said, drawing his sword. "Darkspawn."

I swore.

It was no more than a few moments before they came crashing through the field towards us. No stragglers, these; more like an organised scouting party… or a hunting band.

They were all well-armed hurlocks, hung with gruesome mementoes of past kills, their foul bodies daubed with warpaint and crude tattoos, but their leader was something new. He wore plate armour, and a helmet with great iron horns curling from it… and he carried a double-headed battle-axe.

The pack stopped ahead of us, as if waiting for their leader's command. A horrible dread silence fell, broken only by the creature lifting one huge hand and drawing it across his throat, then pointing at us with something that sounded like the sinister gurgle of a laugh.

Alistair seemed to take it rather personally. He yelled, and the moment broke, shattering into confusion as we charged, they charged, and everything met in a brutal tangle in the middle of the track. The mabari hound was with us, snarling and slamming into the enemy, those great jaws biting and rending at every limb that came within his reach.

I ducked and wove with my cracked dagger, kicking the bastards' legs out from behind and going for the throats and eyes as they fell. It wasn't foolproof, but I took two out that way, before something blunt and heavy smacked down across my shoulders and knocked me to the ground. It turned out to be a hurlock that Alistair had just decapitated, and I found myself with a rather intimate view of his feet as he tackled the band's leader.

Metal scraped against metal, and the air turned rank with the stench of darkspawn blood and the griding, vile growls the thing made. I was just pulling myself out from under the headless corpse, eyes streaming and full of dust, retching with the proximity of torn and bloody flesh, when blinding white light burst overhead, and a wave of cold ripped through the air.

I flung myself down again, and rolled out of the way. I heard one of the hurlocks howl in agony, and Morrigan laughed delightedly. Mages controlling the elements was a new one as far as I was concerned; the way she made ice appear out of nowhere, trapping bodies and leaving them frostbitten and ragged, terrified me.

A pitted, rough blade hit the dirt just beside my head, and a hurlock's screaming face roared down at me, spittle and foul breath flying from its skull-like jaws as it stood over me. I clasped my dagger in both hands and stabbed upwards. Its wild, red eyes swivelled, looking down at the blade I'd stuck in its thigh, and I wrenched the weapon, opening up a gash from which that thick, stinking blood spurted readily. The creature grabbed me by the hair, raising its axe—and then pitched sideways in a flurry of blood and dog.

The mabari hound snarled and, with a wet, fleshy noise, ripped out a sizeable portion of the hurlock's throat.

"Good dog," I murmured breathlessly, hand clamped to my head as I struggled to get up.

I was seeing double and it felt like half my hair had been ripped out at the root, but I was alive. We all were… which was faintly surprising. Morrigan stood off to one side, looking impossibly unruffled, and Alistair was wiping his sword clean. The alpha hurlock lay dead amid its fellows, ice still riming its armour. My feet scudded out from under me, and I sat heavily in the churned, bloody dirt, panting.

"Small scouting party, by the look of it," Alistair said, though he sounded a little doubtful. "Everyone all right?"

"Clearly," Morrigan said archly. "_I_ am not the one the darkspawn can smell as surely as week-old fish. You may thank me for saving your life later."

"Saving my— Wait, did you just say I smell of fish?"

She shrugged. "Merely as an example. However, if the shoe fits…."

Well, at least they were both fine.

The mabari came to stand in front of me, wagging his stumpy tail, and barked cheerfully. A tongue like a slab of bacon lolled from those heavy jaws, and the dog fixed me with the most intelligent expression I'd ever seen on an animal. Recognition dawned as I looked into those soulful brown eyes, and I grinned.

_At least as smart as your average tax collector._

"This is the dog I helped cure at Ostagar!"

Alistair nodded. "He was probably out here looking for you. He's… chosen you. Mabari are like that. S'called imprinting."

The dog barked again, and looked pleased with himself. Morrigan groaned.

"Oh, no. Does this mean we're going to have this mangy beast following us about now? Wonderful."

"He's not mangy!" Alistair cooed, making a kissy face at the hound.

The dog cocked his head to the side and whined.

I reached out tentatively and ruffled his ears, rewarded with a tail wag and some happy panting and—before I could protest—a face full of slobber.

Morrigan tutted, and Alistair just laughed at me as I tried to get out from underneath my new friend.

"All right," I told the mabari. "You can come with us. Happy?"

He barked, and I couldn't help grinning, despite the mounds of dead flesh all over the track.

_**~o~O~o~**_

We dragged the bodies into a pile before moving on, and set light to them. Morrigan had suggested liberating some of the armour and weapons, but Alistair spoke for both of us when he refused, point-blank, to even think about using a darkspawn blade.

Once the flames were consuming the corpses, we struck out again, the peaceful serenity of the farmland ruined rather by the stinking curls of smoke.

Morrigan said we should reach Lothering by the mid-afternoon, barring any further incidents, and I clung to that thought. My feet were killing me. I wanted to talk to her about the darkspawn, though. I was curious to ask whether she'd faced them before, in the Wilds, and to see whether there was any tremor in that golden gaze when she answered me. She was far too unflappable for my liking.

However, I didn't get a chance. Now we were out of her domain, our mighty Witch of the Wilds was sloping along at the rear instead of striding ahead, stabbing at the ground with her staff.

The mabari hound padded purposefully along in front, occasionally criss-crossing the trail to snuff out interesting things in the hedges and undergrowth. I watched him as I walked, and grew aware of Alistair pacing companionably at my side.

"I wonder what his name is," I said, partially to myself and partially just to break the silence.

"What? The dog?"

"Mm."

Alistair shrugged. "No idea. It's usually something fearsome and imposing. Apparently, one of the old Alamarri clans once went to war over the name of their chief's favourite hound."

"Really?" I looked consideringly at the dog's muscular form, as he bounded off into the undergrowth in pursuit of a fly. "Hmm. How about Maethor?"

The hound backed of the bushes, shaking leaves and bits of twig from his head, and looked round at us. He gave a short bark and wagged his tail.

"See? He likes it," I said, as Alistair shook his head incredulously. "What? It's a good elven name. Means 'warrior'."

Maethor shook himself again, and snapped at a bit of leaf that dropped from his ear. Alistair snorted.

"Yes… well, if you're sure."

"If you think you can do better," I began, but he shook his head.

"Oh, no. I'm staying out of it. He chose _you_. Besides, I don't need the responsibility of a dog. I can barely look after myself."

I chuckled, pleased to see that self-deprecating humour of his returning.

"So many comments to choose from," Morrigan observed, from a short distance behind us. "I hardly know _where_ to begin…."

A muscle twitched in Alistair's jaw. "Oh, I get it," he said, glancing back at her. "We're supposed to be shocked to discover you've never had a friend your entire life, right?"

"I can be friendly when I desire to," she retorted, catching us up apparently purely for the pleasure of glaring at him. "Alas, desiring to be more intelligent does not make it so."

I sighed inwardly. Were a few moments of peace too much to ask?

"She's calling me stupid again," Alistair complained.

"Oh, well _done_!"

"I'm not stupid. I was educated by the Chantry, you know. I studied history. They don't _make_ stupid templars."

Morrigan scoffed. "No?"

I tried to tune the pair of them out, and looked up at the beautiful blue-and-white jumble of the sky, just watching the clouds scud below the thinly shimmering sun. It was warm, for the time of year. For a few moments, I could almost believe that this would all be over by the time winter came, but a light breeze was bowling along the track, tossing grit and the occasional leaf before it, and the thoughts didn't feel real enough to hold onto.

Squinting at the horizon, I made out what looked like the suggestion of buildings blurring it, black shapes against the hazy band of sky, and the possibility of the roadway extending alongside it, great stone arches craning up like steepled fingers. The Imperial Highway ran down the centre of the country like a backbone, a feat of engineering and masonry never quite equalled since the fall of the Imperium. It should speed our journey considerably… provided we didn't keep running into obstacles.

I clicked my tongue, and Maethor looked up at me expectantly, with a wag of his stubby tail. I still couldn't believe that: my own mabari hound. People would probably think I'd stolen him from somewhere, though I wasn't certain that was technically possible. A dog his size—and with teeth like that—didn't go anywhere he didn't wish to. Still, he'd certainly proven he could make himself useful.

Hefting my pack, I walked on, and it wasn't until the dim silhouettes of Lothering grew clearer ahead of us that I realised I was leading the two humans behind me.

A strange feeling, that, and one I wasn't sure I was at ease with. I was so absorbed in thinking about it that—until Maethor began to growl quietly beside me—I barely even noticed the wagons with the broken axles, left abandoned beside the track, and the scattered packing crates that lay smashed open on the ground.

We were less than a quarter of a mile from the village. The Highway's stone skeleton arced away to the left, curling around Lothering like some protective serpent. The plain above us held a peaceful view of farmland and a small mill, and there were trees, standing tall and proud, casting dappled shadows onto the grass.

And, into that stippled sunlight, from behind the cover of the busted wagons, a short, wiry man in studded leather armour strode, grinning cheerfully as he fingered the hilt of the shortsword at his belt.

My stomach dropped. Great. Bandits.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO

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I cursed my stupidity. I should have been paying attention, should have noticed the broken-down wagons and the debris strewn around the place… and I should have realised that there would be more to contend with on the road than just the darkspawn.

The shem tossed a broad, oily smile in our direction, and called over his shoulder:

"Wake up, gentlemen! More travellers to attend to."

Behind him, I could see several more humans clambering lazily to their feet. Big, heavy-set humans… most of them armed with daggers and shortswords. One large, bald man with a scar on his cheek was picking his teeth with the point of a nasty-looking knife, and I didn't need to look up to know that the rustle I heard in the trees above was going to be a man with a bow.

Their little gathering took up the whole breadth of the track; there would be no way past them. Maethor and I halted, and I was aware of Alistair and Morrigan drawing up behind us as quickly as nonchalance allowed.

The weaselly, sharp-faced bandit rubbed his hands together as he looked me up and down, and shook his head disbelievingly.

"Well, well," he said, still grinning. "Led by an elf, of all things!"

At his shoulder, a large, bald shem with a head like a carved turnip was giving us a suspicious look.

"Er… they don't look much like them others. Maybe we should just let these ones pass, and—"

"Nonsense!" The first man looked past me, directing his grin at Alistair. "Now, then… ah, yes. Greetings, travellers!"

"Highwaymen," Alistair observed. "Preying on those fleeing the darkspawn, I suppose?"

Morrigan loosed an irritable sigh. "They are fools to get in our way. I say we teach them a lesson."

I winced. Subtlety was not a strong point that either of my companions appeared to possess. The shem's wide grin—verging on manic—was a look I had seen far too often before and, not even counting the several well-armed friends he had behind him, I knew it didn't bode well.

"Well, really." He tutted reproachfully. "Is that any way to greet someone? Dear me. All we ask is a simple ten silvers and you're free to move on."

"We don't have that kind of coin," I said, noting with grim and slightly perverse satisfaction that the shem looked surprised I had answered, and not Alistair. "And your friend's right. We're not refugees."

"What did I tell you?" Turnip-head said smugly. "No wagons… and that's a bloody big dog."

Maethor took the opportunity to yawn widely, displaying his teeth, and sat down at my heel.

The first man's bright-eyed grin did not waver. He folded his arms, allowing the well-polished hilt of his shortsword to catch the sunlight.

"The toll applies to everyone, Hanric," he said cheerfully. "That's why it's a toll and not, say, a refugee tax."

I could have sworn the irritation was rolling off Morrigan in tangible waves. These humans were either idiots, or confident enough in their superior numbers to be reckless. Either way, I didn't fancy their chances if the witch lost her temper… and nor did I want to be standing in the way.

"Look," I said briskly, "we have no coin. We're not paying you anything. Now, please, just let us pass."

The shem's smile finally stiffened and began to pall.

"Well, I can't say I'm pleased to hear that. We have rules, you know."

Hanric the turnip-head nodded. "Yeah. If you don't pay, we get to ransack your corpses. Those are the rules."

I opened my mouth to suggest some sort of compromise—we had the few things we'd salvaged from the Chasind huts, and perhaps they'd have taken those—but Morrigan gave a contemptuous snort.

"You can certainly try," she said darkly.

The bandit looked around at his companions… each of whom had been gradually inching closer, and laying a hand upon his own blade.

"Well, this is going nowhere. Gentlemen?"

It was never going to be a fair fight.

Still, after facing darkspawn, and the horrendous creature that had made its lair at the top of the Tower of Ishal, there was something almost refreshing about the lack of enormous teeth and rotting flesh.

The press of bodies and steel and sweat closed over me, and someone elbowed me in the face, sending a jolt of agony through my nose, and stars skittering across my vision. I heard Maethor snarling, and the scream of a man being borne to the ground by a hundred-odd pounds of mabari. Amid the clang of metal and the thumps of fists, Morrigan unleashed a violent wave of magical energy that I felt rather than saw—something horrible that raised goose bumps on my skin and made my stomach flip—and prompted some bright spark to yell:

"She's a bloody witch!"

"Really?" Alistair said, smashing one of the bandits in the teeth with his sword hand. "You don't say!"

I sidestepped as the man toppled backwards, pawing at his mouth and howling, and found myself face-to-face with the wiry, weaselly little bastard who'd refused to let us pass.

"All this unpleasantness could have been avoided, you know," he said, as he tried to run his shortsword through my ribs.

I twisted away, bringing my foot down heavily on his as I did so, and jabbing an elbow into the centre of his chest—a neat little trick, guaranteed to wind the target, as Mother used to say. Followed smartly by a knee in the groin, it made it possible to disarm the human and twist his wrist up into the middle of his back, using his own weight to keep him off-balance as I let my dagger kiss his throat.

"You think I haven't had shems like you shaking me down for coppers since I was barely off my mother's tit?" I whispered into his ear, my blade pressing in just a little tighter. "You don't scare me, human. Now call them off."

He whimpered, and I was taken aback at the venom I heard in my own voice. That wasn't me, was it?

I jerked the human's arm again, mainly for effect, as if I pushed it too far he'd realise I hadn't the strength to actually break the bone, and that—if he was quick—he could overpower me before I had the chance to kill him.

"All right, all right…. Enough!"

The skirmish stilled around us, the urgency of battle giving way to the uneasy tension of unwilling surrender.

I looked past my captive's ear, glad he was short for a human, otherwise I'd have been on tiptoe to see beyond his shoulder, and would have lost most of the authority the situation lent me. I nodded.

"Good. Alistair, take their weapons. Everything visible, anyway. Morrigan… we don't need to kill them. Unless they move," I added, in deference to her look of disappointment.

There was a general shuffling and apparent holding of breath from the men as she surveyed their ranks, and I guessed they were unlikely to try anything. _I _certainly wouldn't have done, with the witch and the mabari both glaring at me like that. Alistair relieved them of a quantity of daggers, shortswords, and knuckle dusters, and two crossbows. I had no doubt there were more esoteric weapons concealed here and there on the men, but they weren't our concern.

I pressed the tip of my dagger into the soft flesh of the shem's neck.

"Now, how about answering some questions?"

He winced. "I-I don't know what I can tell you… we aren't even from these parts!"

"Oh, I see. Here for the pumpkin festival, then? What's going on in Lothering?"

The shem squirmed in my grip, but wasn't stupid enough to put up too much of a fight. "It's packed full. Refugees have been… ouch… flooding up from the south. Chasind Wilders and farmholders, mostly. They… they say there are darkspawn pouring out of the Korcari Wilds."

"And what about Ostagar?" I demanded, being careful to avoid Alistair's eye.

"What do you want me to say?" The shem squeaked, his throat bobbing nervously as he gulped down air. "The king's army was massacred. Everyone knows that. Teyrn Loghain pulled his men out just in time, and now he's gone back north to Denerim. The local bann here has followed, so… please don't do that… there's no one left to look out for the village except a few templars at the chantry. Lothering is finished."

I didn't like the sound of that. Such readiness to flee, to abandon everything in the face of the oncoming horde. Understandable, but—

"Have you heard about any survivors from the battle?"

Alistair couldn't stop himself from asking. I saw the shem's eyes swivel towards him, watched him wetting his lips with the quick swipe of an anxious tongue before he answered.

"Couple, maybe. A group of wounded ash warriors came by earlier… we got right out of _their_ way. Other than that—"

"What about the Grey Wardens?"

There was such earnest, painful hope in Alistair's voice, and it stung to see the look on his face. Despite the ache in my arms, I tightened my grip on the human, forcing an answer from him.

"E-Everyone says it was their fault, that's all I know! The teyrn says they betrayed the king, and—"

"_What_?"

"Alistair," I warned. I don't think he even knew he'd started to raise the sword in his hand.

"There's a b-bounty on them," the shem yelped, shutting his eyes. "Loghain's first act as regent was to declare the Grey Wardens traitors."

The news shocked me, but not enough to stop me thinking. It was possible the teyrn hadn't known that the tower had fallen, that to his eyes our delay had been deliberate… but did his suspicion run deep enough for that? Or had Alistair and I, green as we were, been a distraction, a diversion in something more sophisticated?

Whether this was outright betrayal or a terrible mistake, I found myself wondering uncomfortably whether Loghain knew we were still alive.

"That treacherous, two-faced _bastard_," Alistair spat. "When Eamon finds out what he's done—"

"He'll see justice," I promised. "But, right now, we have other problems."

"Please don't kill me," the human whined. "Look… all the money we took is in that chest over there. Well, nearly all of it. Most of it, in fact. Almost a hundred silvers, and some _very_ valuable trinkets. Take it. Take all of it. There's a key on my belt…."

I nodded at Alistair. He strode over, found and removed the key, and set to… unfettering the contents of the chest, hidden behind one of the busted wagons. I bit down hard on the temptation to make a comment about breaking and entering, and decided to save it for later.

Still, desperate times and all that.

I waited until he had the moneybags safely in his hands, then took my dagger from the shem's throat and released his wrist.

"All right."

The human stumbled away from me, glanced nervously at Morrigan, and tried ineffectually to smooth his hair and straighten his jerkin.

"T-Thank you," he mumbled, with a much thinner version of that same greasy smile.

"Go on," I said, jerking my head towards the road. "The lot of you. Start running, and don't come back."

"Really? Oh, bless you. Yes. Yes, the darkspawn can have this place!"

The human turned and ran full pelt off down towards the Highway, the rest of his band following close behind. They moved slowly at first, until Morrigan made a quick, cruel feint with her staff and—fearing their backsides were about to be turned to ice—the erstwhile bandits demonstrated a surprising turn of speed for such big lads.

"Was that truly wise?" Morrigan asked, as we watched the figures recede along the road.

"They probably will just start terrorising people somewhere else," Alistair said thoughtfully, picking through the liberated weaponry.

"Maybe," I admitted, "but there are always bandits. If we start cutting down every petty thief and criminal we come across, we'll be knee-deep in bodies in no time, and too tired to face the darkspawn."

He snorted, and passed me a pair of daggers with ornately tooled hilts and lightly etched engraving in the blood gutters.

"Here. Those do you?"

I weighed the blades experimentally, and smiled. "Nice. Anything with more of a reach?"

We had quite a haul spread out on the stones, and I wondered briefly how far afield the bandits' victims had come from. There were dwarven-made weapons, Chasind flatblades… far more of a range than the quartermaster had offered back at Ostagar.

Alistair picked a stout, plain, steel shortsword to augment the blade he still carried, and slung one of the crossbows across his back. I shouldered the other crossbow, and chose something very much like the sword with the leather-braided hilt that I'd lost at Ishal. The blade wasn't as well forged or keenly balanced, but it would have to do.

"And this from those who were so loath to take supplies from huts already abandoned?" Morrigan observed, arching one thin eyebrow.

Alistair got to his feet, clinking gently with the assortment of weaponry hung about him. "This is completely different! You can't steal from thieves. This is just… redistributing. Right?"

He looked to me for confirmation. I shrugged. "Probably."

"Oh, come on…."

"All right." I grinned. "It's redistributing ill-gotten gains, which is technically almost the absolute opposite of stealing."

"Thank you."

Morrigan sighed petulantly, and I had to admit that sharing in Alistair's habit of baiting the easily annoyed was rather fun. As long as she didn't lose patience and set fire to us both, or something.

However, the weapons were only part of the problem. We still needed to worry about new armour, supplies, food—and if what we'd heard was true, Lothering was unlikely to be the welcome haven we might have hoped for.

We gathered the… redistributed goods together, and Alistair nodded to me as we readied to make our way into the village.

"Go on, then," he said with a small smile. "Lead on."

I blinked, unsure whether he was making fun of me or not.

_**~o~O~o~**_

According to Morrigan, Lothering was a well-known trade hub, but it was hard to see that in the mess that greeted us.

The village was full to bursting with refugees. Shanty camps took up every available piece of ground, crowding up to the roadside and crammed with dirty, wide-eyed faces. Meagre little fires crackled wherever people had found enough fuel to burn, and children too young to understand what was happening chased each other among the tents and makeshift shelters.

For a moment, it almost felt like being back in the alienage, but there was a hopelessness here, a sense of fear and inescapable dread that was foreign to me. _We_ had nothing because we'd always had nothing; these people had lost everything overnight.

Beyond the huddled masses, a small stone bridge led over a narrow brook, and I could make out the village square, with the roofline of the chantry rising proudly above it, and throngs of storefronts and houses. Somehow, I doubted the merchants were doing a brisk trade.

"Well, there it is," Alistair said dryly. "Lothering. Pretty as a painting."

It must have been, once.

"Let's see what we can find," I muttered, as we started to head towards the square.

I could feel the weight of people's gazes on us as we walked, and I didn't like it one bit. The bloody armour and bristling weapons aside, we were too obviously out of place, too easy to spot. The only way it could have been worse was if Alistair had been sporting a surcoat with a griffon on it.

If he had, I wondered how many of these people would have recognised the heraldry—and how quickly they would learn to identify it, with a bounty at stake. It was a smart move on Teyrn Loghain's part, I supposed; lay all the blame for what he had done at the door of what most considered a small, unimportant order, whose influence was but a shadow of what it had been four centuries ago. He could claim the Grey Wardens, like Cailan, had been obsessed with legends and glory and—resting on his own reputation as a sound strategist—be the only sane man to have served at the war council.

Memories of the teyrn, and that striking, impenetrable stare of his came back to me… the way I'd been glanced over, assessed, and dismissed. Had he known then what he was planning to do?

My thoughts were starting to echo Alistair's vituperative complaints, and I tried hard to tamp them down. Whatever had happened—whatever Loghain had done, or not done, or intended to do—all that mattered was that a united Ferelden could stand against the darkspawn. As long as that happened, I supposed the politics didn't matter… at least for now.

In the village square, we found shop after shop closed up. With the place overwhelmed by refugees, demand had far outstripped supply, and there were enough broken windows and barred doors to suggest things had turned nasty more than once. A few templars patrolled here and there, and I shot a nervous glance at Morrigan, which Alistair noticed.

"Hmm. Good point," he said.

"What?" she scowled at him. "Am I to take it that you two are talking behind my back now?"

"No," I said hastily. "Just that… well…."

"They have a chantry here," Alistair chimed in gleefully. "With templars. Who might possibly just notice, oh, I don't know… that you're a witch?"

She scoffed. "And you think that hasn't happened before?"

"It doesn't matter," I said, forcing my words between the two of them while I had a chance. "This time, there's no running back into the Wilds. I just thought it would be sensible to, er, try not to draw attention to ourselves? Maybe?"

They were both looking at me as if I'd suggested walking to Redcliffe on our hands. I shrugged. It was a foolish hope. None of us were inconspicuous, after all. I could be as good as invisible if I put on ordinary clothes, carried no obvious weapon, and took care to walk like a messenger or a servant, but dressed like this I may as well have been carrying a firework in my teeth and juggling tulips. Maethor was a mabari, which meant everyone who saw him was automatically looking for his wealthy owner, and Alistair… well. If we grubbied him up a bit and took away the armour and weaponry, he'd still clearly be a soldier of some kind. It would be there in the way he walked, the set of his shoulders… and trying to hide it would mean a level of subterfuge I wasn't sure he could carry off.

It was ironic, I supposed, but Morrigan was the only one of us who was actually what she appeared to be, and nothing more. Or so I thought.

"I… could wait by the forge," she said reluctantly. "If that will put an end to your gobbling."

"Thank you." I nodded, and glanced down at Maethor.

He cocked his head to the side, and whined curiously. Mabari hounds did really seem to understand every word, I mused.

"Yes. You go with her, but behave."

He wagged his tail, and Morrigan gave an exasperated sigh. "Oh, really…."

"Try not to happen to anyone," Alistair called, as she swept away, the hound loping cheerfully after her.

I shook my head and sighed. One of these days, he was going to wake up bright green and sitting on a lily pad.

We took the gear we had to sell into one of the few open shops left in the square. The sign outside the door showed it to be a weapon merchant's, which made sense as it stood opposite the forge, but it was clear from the moment we entered that the owner had found the need to expand the wares he offered. Crates, sacks and barrels stood piled high in every corner and upon every inch of floorspace, and chains ran around some of the stacks, guarding against wandering hands.

"'Oo's that?" demanded a voice. "Whatchoo want? Don't think I can't see yer!"

An old woman came out from the back of the store, clutching a blackjack in her thin, gnarled hand.

"Maker's breath…." Alistair murmured, pressing his lips tight together.

"I ain't got no food!" she snapped, leaning on the counter and glaring at us. The milky film of old age covered one eye, and she moved her head from side to side as she spoke, trying to keep us both in focus. "If anyone told you I got food, they lied."

I nudged Alistair, and nodded at the woman. He raised his eyebrows, evidently having expected me to deal with her, and winced, then cleared his throat.

"Er… we're not here for food. We have some—"

"What?"

"Some goods!" He raised his voice. "Goods… for sale. For you to… buy?"

Dear Maker, he was hopeless. The old woman cocked her head to the side, listening intently, then her face split into a broad grin, showing the blunt, brown stubs of three teeth, in a row at the front of her mouth.

"Why didn't yer say, lad?" She knuckled her way around the counter, cudgel still in hand, and slapped one skinny palm against the worn wood. "All right, then, let's take a looksee. Get yer elf to pop 'em up here."

Alistair winced again. "Um, she's not my—"

The storekeeper waved her blackjack in my general direction. "Come on, knifey. We ain't got all day."

Alistair opened his mouth, but I got there first, took the sack of daggers, shortswords and assorted other curios from him, and hoisted it up onto the counter.

"Yes, mistress."

I could feel him staring, but I didn't dare meet his eye. I just stood there, shoulders slightly hunched, looking at the floor while the old woman pawed through what we'd brought her.

"Hmm, not bad," she said eventually, fixing Alistair with her one good eye. "Fifty silvers the bundle."

_Ouch_.

"Fifty—? You're kidding," he protested. "That shortsword alone is worth—"

"Take it or leave it, son," she said, grinning.

Alistair huffed irritably. "Seventy-five."

"Ooh, out for a hard bargain, are we? How about I tell you to take 'em elsewhere, eh? We got no demand for blades in these parts, anyway. Got hungry bellies and cold bodies… need blankets and food, not blades."

They'd need weapons if they weren't gone by the time the horde came, I thought, but I didn't say anything. The old woman beamed triumphantly at Alistair.

"Sixty."

"All right," he muttered, defeated.

"What's that?"

"I said, all _right_," he repeated, before lapsing back into an undertone. "Money-grubbing old trout…."

"What, lad?"

"I said, 'weather's nice out'."

I swallowed a snigger. He must have been such a trial to the chantry brothers.

Eventually, Alistair struck a deal with the old bag, and we left her armoury-cum-general store with substantially less money than she'd originally offered, a selection of crossbow bolts with different sized heads (which I was fairly sure we didn't need, but which Alistair had been intrigued by), and a stout ash-wood shield, now slung across his back.

"Maker!" he exclaimed as we crossed the square. "How did she do that?"

Privately, I suspected it had been a matter of pretending to be half-blind and partially senile, then waiting for a likely mark to stumble into the shop, but I didn't say so.

"Years of experience, probably," I said. "So, how much do we have left, all together?"

Alistair counted quickly under his breath. "Best part of two sovereigns. Not going to go very far, but it should get us the supplies we need… providing anyone's actually trading."

I nodded, trying to feign insouciance, and trying not to remember the day I'd thought fifteen silvers was more money than I had ever held in my hands at once.

"Why did you do that?" he asked. "In there. When she—"

I shrugged, telling myself he wouldn't understand even if I explained it.

"We wanted a good deal," I said. "She wouldn't have paid any more if I'd argued."

"Oh."

His brow furrowed, but he didn't say anything else.

_**~o~O~o~**_

There were other stops to make in the village, other traders to argue with. As there didn't seem to be much point in trying to get our armour repaired, Alistair and I had to lock horns with a travelling merchant outside the forge, and barter for new kit, which almost resulted in bloodshed.

It was sad, really. The dog-eared history of Ferelden Mother had given me when I was a child—my copy lost now, along with most of my few treasures from home, somewhere on top of the Tower of Ishal—mentioned the route that Lothering sat upon as one of the great trade roads. There was a noble tradition of diversity and free commerce here, linking as the place did the great dwarven city of Orzammar, and the rest of the western highlands, with the Bannorn and all that lay to the south. It was depressing that it should so quickly have come to this: teeming with the hungry and destitute, free enterprise replaced by naked profiteering, and the desperate one more missed meal away from turning into a mob.

"State of this…." Alistair muttered, poking through the gear that had cost us almost every copper we had. "I don't even think it's going to fit you."

"Nothing fits me," I said glumly, thinking back to the tribulations of getting kitted out for the first time at Ostagar; standing there holding my breath while the quartermaster made running adjustments to my new armour with a sharp knife, and laced me in like a stuffed chicken.

Alistair chuckled. "I remember when I first clapped eyes on you at… at camp. All bruised and skinny, armour practically falling off you…."

"Huh. Well," I teased, as we rounded the corner behind the forge, on our way to pick Morrigan up again, "you certainly know how to make a girl feel good about herself."

He laughed. "Oh, come on…. You know what I mean."

It was light-hearted, but there was a grain of truth in there. I _did_ know what he meant: he'd never even believed I'd survive the Joining, much less still be here now. I tried not to take it too personally. After all, if I'd known any of the details about the ritual—not to mention what would end up following it—_I _wouldn't have believed it either.

We found Maethor rolling around on his back in the dirt, playing the fool in the middle of a bunch of children. They were all scrawny little things, with scraped knees and grubby faces, and I was glad to see smiles poking through the grime.

The dog barked and scrambled to his feet as we approached, and the children scattered, giggling and shrieking.

"It is an appalling display. I thought he was supposed to be a wardog."

I blinked, sure Morrigan hadn't been standing there a second ago. She was leaning decorously against the warm stone of the forge's back wall, a pile of goods at her feet. I made out rolls of canvas, blankets, and what looked like the suspicion—oh, holy of holies!—of clean undergarments.

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Please tell me you paid for those."

"I simply wearied of waiting like some useless china doll," she said haughtily. "Now, do we have what we need or not? I do not see there is much point in wasting any more time here."

Alistair and I exchanged glances. Uncomfortable as it was to admit, she was right. There was little we could do for the people of Lothering, and it wasn't safe to linger.

"We still need food," I said doubtfully. "And it might be sensible to hear what news there is on the road…."

"Apart from Loghain trying to pry the crown off the king's corpse before it's even cold?"

I didn't reply. Alistair was still too raw to listen to reason… not that I didn't share the sentiment. All the same, I wasn't prepared to throw myself behind a campaign of vengeance against the teyrn just yet. Too much remained unknown.

"Maybe we should try the tavern?" I suggested. "Then, if that's no good, we'll head out. Got to be at least a good few hours of daylight left."

Somehow, I'd expected Alistair to make some kind of tactical contribution, but he just shrugged and nodded.

"All right. If you think that's best."

Morrigan made a pretext of examining her fingernails, and let out one small, sharp: "Hm."

"You have a problem with that, then?" he enquired, and I sighed inwardly.

Their bickering had barely let up for a moment since we'd left the Wilds and—though I suspected having some useful figure to vent his ire at was one of the few things keeping Alistair sane—I found it increasingly wearing.

"I merely find it… curious," she said, flexing her fingers like a cat stretches its paw, and looking up at him with that eerie golden gaze.

"What?"

"Well, of the two of you that remain, are you not the senior Grey Warden here? I find it curious that you allow another to lead, while you follow."

A week or so ago, I would have taken her words as a dressing-down for attempting to assume more authority than my position allowed. I might have bowed my head and been embarrassed, skulked off somewhere to remind myself of what I was, and what it wasn't my place to do. As it was, I was too tired, hungry, and dirty for mind games, and I bit down on the urge to slap the woman, mage or not.

Alistair folded his arms. "You find that curious, do you? Oh. Good."

"In fact," she went on, evidently enjoying herself, "you defer to a new recruit. Is this a policy of the Grey Wardens? Or simply a personal one?"

"Leave him alone, Morrigan," I snapped, and almost regretted it in the moment that those golden eyes flickered to me, as round and burnished as coins.

"Oh, but how can I?" She gave an impish smile, as unthinkingly cruel as any predator. "He is right there, _speaking_, eyes wide like those of a brainless calf…."

"What do you want to hear?" Alistair said wearily. "That I prefer to follow? I do, as it happens."

The flares of fire and the screams of the wounded flashed behind my eyes, and I blinked the memories away, annoyed by the witch's derision of things she didn't understand… and perhaps ever so slightly surprised at myself for this sudden surge of protectiveness towards a human.

"You sound so very defensive, Alistair!"

"At least I haven't been going around stealing supplies from refugees. I always knew you'd—"

"And what has you so utterly convinced I stole them? Am I incapable of barter? Unable to trade my skills for profit?"

Maethor laid down at my feet and whined, chin on his paws. I looked down at the hound and nodded in silent agreement. Admittedly, if they actually came to blows, the fight _would_ be worth watching, but it would not get us any closer to Redcliffe, or to stopping the Blight.

"Um…." I began.

"Skills?" Alistair wrinkled his nose. "Andraste's blood, I don't think I want to know."

"Oh? So because I am a woman—"

"Well, _female_, arguably…."

"—then it follows I must be dependent upon my feminine wiles for survival?"

Alistair drew breath, and I gave up. I pointed beyond the square, to where the tavern lay; a long, low building with a shabby thatched roof and yet another conglomeration of tents and fires outside. From the smell tugging at the air, and the sight of people clutching clay bowls as they walked away, it looked as if some enterprising soul might even have set up some kind of field kitchen.

"Look, I'm going to…. I— I'll catch you up in a bit," I said, aware that neither of them were listening to me.

Maethor lumbered to his feet and followed me and, leaving the squabbling behind us, we picked our way through the thinning crowds. The people here had a certain look about them, I noticed. Something worn, and almost glassy, as if they were staring straight through the grubby streets and closed-up shops, back into whatever hectic, horrendous jumble they had stumbled from.

I thought of those first few days after leaving Denerim, on the long ride south with Duncan. Every time we'd stopped, every time I tried to sleep, all that had happened in those violent, bloody hours collapsed in on me from the dark… and it hadn't stopped yet.

It had started to fade, perhaps, pushed back in my mind by other, fresher horrors, and that was just as bad, wasn't it? I pictured a time when I would be nothing but a walking catalogue of bloodshed and battle. My memories would move no more, trapped in changeless bubbles, like flies in amber, and I wouldn't think of Nelaros, or Nola, or Shianni—or the guards at the tower, the boy, Dawkins, or even Duncan—as real people at all. They would just be names with dates and events attached to them, one-line labels fastened to dry, dusty specimens.

I shook myself from those stupid thoughts. _No_. The weight of my pendant, and the ring that nestled beside it, knocked at my chest, and I reached up to touch it, as if reassuring myself that it was still there… that I was still me.

There was a small boy among the drifting crowds—a freckly little scrap of a thing with a shock of red hair—and he was calling for his mother. No one seemed to be listening. I could see the child being brushed aside and ignored and, once, almost knocked to the ground.

Maethor grumbled, whined, and trotted over to the boy. He seemed to have a real affinity for children; not something I'd expected to see in a dog with jaws like a trap, and teeth almost as long as my little finger. All the same, I followed the hound, and watched him nudge up to the child, who looked around in surprise and patted the mabari on the head with one sticky, grubby hand.

"'Ello, doggy!" He glanced up at me, wide-eyed, and I could see the faded traces of tear-tracks on his dirty face. "Cor, is this your dog, missus?"

"Yes, he is." I smiled. But for the flat ears and the voice, the lad almost reminded me of Soris as a boy.

"He's nice."

Maethor wagged his tail and licked the boy's face. I thought incongruously of Father, and the abject horror with which he'd view such a scene. As children, we used to rough-and-tumble with the stray dogs in the alienage, and he'd cluck like a mother hen over how we might get bitten, or the fleas and disease and dirtiness… and we'd laugh, until someone _did_ get nipped.

The boy sniffed damply, and scrubbed the back of his hand over his face.

"I'm looking for my mother. Have you seen her? She's tall, and she's got red hair, like me, and she wears a green cloak. She said she'd be right behind me, but I've been here since yesterday, and I 'aven't seen her. I don't know where she is…."

He knotted his skinny hand into the scruff of loose skin over Maethor's shoulders, the dog's short brindled coat sticking up through his fingers. The mabari groaned, low in his chest, and offered another lick of a salty, smudged cheek. My heart broke a little bit, and I hunkered down to the child's level.

"Where's your father?"

"He went with William to the neighbour's, but he didn't come back," the boy said, his voice taking on the high monotone of a child trying not to cry. "And then the mean men with swords came, and mother told me to run to the village as fast as I could, so I did, and I thought she was behind me, but I've been waiting and waiting…."

I reached into the coin purse at my belt. It wasn't really _my_ money, but I doubted my companions would— well, Alistair wouldn't mind, and what Morrigan didn't know wouldn't kill her, I supposed.

"Here. Take this, buy yourself something to eat, and then why not go to the chantry, hmm? If—_when _your mother comes, she'll know to look for you there."

I pushed one of our last coins into his hand, and he looked up at me with wet, grateful eyes, the look in them working its way from grief to self-justification.

"I s'pose…." He glanced down at the money I'd given him. "A whole silver? Wow! Thank you!"

I smiled. Money wouldn't make it better, but it would make the process of suffering more comfortable. We knew about that where I came from.

"So…." The boy's grubby face screwed up around the effort of framing a difficult question. "Um… are you really an elf?"

My smile widened. "Mm-hm. The ears are a give away, right?"

He nodded, beamed widely, and then looked thoughtful.

"Father says elves aren't very nice. But you're nicer than everybody here."

The simple honesty of children can be devastating, and I was taken aback for a moment, lost for a reply.

"Well, um…."

"Bye-bye, doggy!"

He patted Maethor on the head and, clutching the coin tightly, scampered off in the direction of the impromptu soup kitchen pitched outside the tavern. It looked a bit like the two-bit ordinaries that opened in the late afternoons and evenings in the market district back home—just in time to catch workmen clocking off, and just in time to make use of all the bruised vegetables and slightly spoiled meat left over from the day's trading.

Even the smell was the same: everything roughly chopped and boiled to a weak broth, then slapped into a cheap bowl, no extras. You paid two coppers for the meal, and got one back if you returned the bowl. Not a bad deal, all things considered, and pretty much no one got really bad food poisoning.

My stomach growled impatiently, and I supposed it wouldn't do any harm to see what was on offer.

I headed over, as nonchalantly as I could… which didn't make me terribly inconspicuous. Even with Maethor at my side, I felt vulnerable. In all that time in the Wilds and on the road, I might have missed the security of walls and buildings around me, but I'd forgotten that they came with eyes. Every shem in the place seemed to be staring at me, and I tried not let my nerves show. It was because of the armour, I knew. No one was used to seeing it on an elf anyway and, in its current battered, bloodstained state, it screamed 'troublemaker'.

Well, I was, I supposed.

The thought would have been funny, had I been elsewhere. Instead, I watched human after human look at me carefully, then turn away, or nudge the man next to him and nod towards me… it probably wouldn't be long before women started pulling their children out of my path, I thought with a grimace.

"Ah, there you are!"

Alistair's voice rang out behind me, and I didn't need to turn around to know he'd be bearing down cheerfully upon me, completely oblivious to the growing tension in the air.

"I was looking for you. You just… disappeared."

A large, companionable hand slapped me on the back, and I wobbled slightly on my feet. He was grinning in a very suspicious manner.

"I was going to get—"

"You'll never guess how she got those things. She didn't want to tell me, but I got it out of her."

"Oh?" I managed, glancing over my shoulder.

Morrigan was striding towards us, glowering horribly. We couldn't get much less inconspicuous if we tried, I supposed.

"Making healing poultices for the village elder!" Alistair crowed. "Actually doing something _nice_ for someone else. Hah!"

"It was an act of trade, and no more," Morrigan grumbled, glaring at him. "I merely wanted to make our stay in this… _pit _as brief as possible. And if you cannot keep your peace about it, you can purchase your own bedroll."

The stares were getting longer, and more obvious. I imagined we were the best street theatre Lothering had seen in months. I sighed. Well, if you can't beat them….

"I'd have thought you two would have kissed and made up by now."

The smile slipped from Alistair's face as suddenly as bacon fat off a hot plate.

"Please. Don't say things like that, unless you want to see me projectile vomit."

Morrigan snorted, muttered something under her breath, and strode past us to the door of the tavern. I half-expected it to splinter into pieces at her touch, but it just slammed open on its hinges.

I shook my head. No two-copper hot dinner for me, then.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE

* * *

**

The tavern wasn't in a much better state than the rest of the village. The sign outside bore the name _Dane's Refuge_, though the place looked more like a last resort.

Inside, it stunk of cheap ale and unwashed bodies, and there was a press of people so thick I could barely see the floor or the far wall. A large fire blazed in the inglenook and, to the right, the innkeeper and two weary-looking girls were serving mug after mug of beer. Bedrolls and blankets lined the edges of the room, the rush-strewn boards littered with people trying to claim a spot of their own. Women with babies and small children on their laps, the elderly, and the sick all stared up, big-eyed and pale-faced, with that same glassy, hollow look.

A handful of chantry sisters were here, trying to minister to the needy, and up a short staircase, even the mezzanine was crowded with refugees. A travelling bard and his woman were playing, the song she sang little more than a shadow beneath the buzz and hum of the tavern. All the same, it brought me up short. It seemed such a long time since I'd heard music. I supposed I'd never really thought about how much a part of life it had been in the alienage; always a song or a tune to any daily task, leavening the dreary hours, or breaking like a bird from cover once work was over, in a burst of unexpected and unrepentant joy.

I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, though I knew a lot of the words. This one sounded very much like _In Amaranthine Fair_, though I didn't have time to listen harder, aware of Alistair tensing beside me.

"Uh-oh," he muttered. "Loghain's men. This can't be good."

I followed his gaze. The soldiers should have been the first thing I noticed. There was a pack of them over by the far side of the bar, all in leather and heavy chain, and I felt my stomach clench. Several of the men were swinging mugs, raucous with booze and the over-confidence that came from the roughest kind of authority. Each bore the teyrn's badge on his shoulder, and without that I could easily have mistaken them for the kind of guard shift we used to get on the alienage gates on long winter evenings: bored, bad-tempered, and waiting for an excuse for malice.

Their captain looked sober, though, and it was he who pointed over towards us, just as I was realising there wasn't much point in trying to back out of the tavern quietly. Practically every eye in the place was on us already although, from the gallery, the bards were valiantly attempting to carry on with their song.

"_And she was the lady with golden hair  
"And eyes soft as sweet rain.  
"And she was my love, in Amaranthine fair,  
"Who ne'er I'll see again…."_

The woman's clear, mellow voice, and the round, warm notes of the lute gradually tapered away, just as every patron standing between us and the teyrn's soldiers suddenly seemed to find a reason to be elsewhere.

"Well, well," the captain boomed. "Look what we have here, men. I think we've just been blessed!"

My backbone seemed anxious to slide out from under my skin and make a bid for freedom. I didn't move; laying a hand on a weapon would only give them the cause they were looking for.

Another of the soldiers edged forwards: eager and obsequious at his superior's side.

"That's them, isn't it, ser? The tall, fair one, and the elf."

"Indeed, Corporal. Looks like our sources were correct." The shem leered unpleasantly at us and, extending two fingers of his left hand, waved his men forwards. "Come along, boys. We're taking the Grey Wardens into custody."

The sound of a wooden chair being pushed back barked on the floor, and a woman in a chantry robe rose, coming to put herself between us and the soldiers. The firelight glimmered on the red-and-gold embroidery of her clothing, and made flames of her striking auburn hair, a deeper red than I'd ever seen on anyone. It was almost as remarkable as the calmness with which she faced down the entire band of drunken, restless men.

"Gentlemen," she said sweetly, her voice carrying the lilts and twirls of Orlesian consonants, "surely there is no need for trouble. These are no doubt simply more poor souls seeking refuge."

I risked a glance at my companions. Morrigan's grip on her staff had grown slightly more tense, her stare unblinking, and Alistair slipped me an almost imperceptible nod. By my heel, Maethor was standing four-square, attentive, his jaws open a fraction… just enough to show the white gleam of his teeth.

The captain scoffed. "They're more than that. Now stay out of our way, Sister. You protect these traitors, and you'll get the same as them."

I had no desire to add bloodshed to Lothering's list of woes, but we couldn't back down. At least, I supposed, this answered my question about whether Loghain knew we were alive—and how long he planned for us to remain that way.

"Look…." I ran my tongue over my dry, cracked lips, aware my appearance didn't present a very convincing picture. "Let's just talk about this, shall we?"

The human curled his lip disparagingly, reminding me for a fleeting moment of the last time I'd tried to divert violence with words.

_Maybe you should invite it over for dinner!_

The chantry sister shook her head and, turning around, fixed me with an ice-blue gaze like two chips of bright glass in a heart-shaped, porcelain face.

"I doubt he would listen," she said, in that musical, mellifluous tone. "He blindly follows his master's commands."

"I am not the blind one!" the captain retorted angrily. "I served at Ostagar, where the teyrn saved us from the Grey Wardens' treachery! I serve him gladly!"

"Then you're blind _and_ a fool!" Alistair snapped. "It was Loghain who betrayed—"

"Lies!" The captain drew his sword, sending a scattering of mugs on the bar crashing to the rushes. "They're ours, lads! Kill the sister and anyone else who gets in your way."

For men who'd been drinking hard, their reflexes were fast. The discipline of army life would do that a person, I supposed, as one heavy shem lunged at me, his fleshy mouth curled around a roar of anger. I ducked and, as the ale-foul dankness of his breath washed over me and his blade arced through the air above my head, I came up with my knee already bent, making a short and powerful thrust into his crotch. His cry of rage became a retching, agonised howl, cut off when my fist met the bridge of his nose and—pain exploding through my knuckles—I felt the shift of cartilage wrenching.

He collapsed backwards, taking a perfectly innocent chair with him, and I clutched my bloody hand to my chest, swearing a blue streak. Maethor was taking care of a soldier of his own, shaking the man's arm in his mouth like it was a rag toy, while the flash of sharp white light that pulsed through the air, making my sinuses throb, told me Morrigan was busy tormenting anyone foolish enough to rush her. My first concern was for the sister who had tried to help us, and it was with some surprise that I saw she had slipped a dagger from her boot, and was merrily disarming the slimy little corporal.

I didn't have much opportunity to wonder where she'd learned those skills, because Alistair yelled my name and, without breaking for breath, I pitched to the ground, just before another of the teyrn's men tried to break a chair over my head.

I got a mouthful of tavern-floor rushes, and rose up spitting, sword drawn and splinters of wood in my hair. I saw Alistair slam the captain to the ground with his shield, the sheer weight of anger and betrayal behind his blow sending the man scudding a good two feet along the floor.

It wasn't right. None of it was right. These men didn't want us taken alive, whatever they claimed their orders were… and Alistair certainly wasn't inclined to mercy. All I saw as I glanced around the scrum were the ranks of terrified faces; people pressed to the walls where they hadn't been able to get out of the door. Children were crying into their mothers' bosoms, and an old man had positioned himself in front of his wife, his arms spread out to guard her from the flurry of blades.

"Enough!" I yelled, bringing the pommel of my blade back into the teeth of the man coming up behind me, and stomping down on his foot.

Across the room, a burst of that unsettling magical ice proved that Morrigan had to have the last word on everything but, gradually, the fighting stilled. The bright _ting_ of metal and the fleshy thuds of blows ceased, leaving only ragged breathing, the squalling of babies, and sobs of children… and the pained groans of the handful of men still on the ground.

The captain had yet to rise. From the way he was sweating and lying there on his back, groping for his sword with his left hand, I guessed Alistair's shield blow had broken his arm.

Alistair didn't look bothered by the fact; if anything, he seemed mildly annoyed that he wasn't going to get to finish the job. When he looked at me—a silent question as I crossed the room, picking my way through the mess—I expected to see hardness in his face, anger or… well, something other than that tight, desperate ache.

I couldn't hold his gaze. I looked away, down at Loghain's lackey, and the sweat beading on his poorly shaven upper lip. Behind me, I was aware of those of his men still standing, caught in an awkward moment of hiatus, unsure what they should do.

The shem scowled at me, his dark eyes narrow and ever-flickering, like a rat.

"T-Traitors!" he gurgled.

I placed my foot delicately over his broken arm, and listened to him catch his breath. I don't know quite why I did it, but it felt good. Just a little more pressure, and I could make the bastard scream like a woman in labour.

"Do you yield, ser?" I asked, loud enough for the whole tavern to hear me.

He gave me a look of pure hatred, but nodded his head.

"All right… yes. Yes, we yield. You've won," he growled, and I could have sworn that 'knife-ears' was just dangling from his tongue, unsaid but as good as shouted.

The Orlesian chantry sister gave a small, bright sigh. "Good. They've learned their lesson and we can all stop fighting now."

I removed my foot from the soldier's arm and nodded to Alistair to help him up. He did it, but not with terribly good grace.

"The Grey Wardens didn't betray King Cailan," he muttered, grabbing the man's left arm and hauling him roughly to his feet. "Loghain did."

"I was _there_!" The captain's lip curled back into a snarl. "The teyrn pulled us out of a trap!"

They were nose-to-nose now, fair against dark, Alistair still harshly clasping the man's arm… and probably set to break that one, too.

"There was no trap!" he protested. "Ishal was overrun! The beacon went up, and the teyrn left the king to die!"

Whatever the truth of that night, and whatever had lain behind it, I had to admit that the loyalty Teyrn Loghain inspired in his men was impressive. The captain refused to back down, the anger in his voice every bit as tempered with betrayal and pain as Alistair's.

I wondered how much of the carnage on the battlefield he'd seen at Ostagar.

"The Wardens led the king to his death!" he spat. "The teyrn could do nothing!"

"That's a lie! Our men—"

This wasn't helping. I snaked out a foot and kicked Alistair on the ankle, savagely but quickly.

"Ow!"

"Take a message to Loghain," I told the captain, getting in while I had the chance, and supplementing my words with a little shove to his chest.

It had the benefit of getting Alistair to let go of him, yet maintaining the look of the argument.

"W-what would you have me tell him?"

The bastard was looking at Alistair, not me. I almost wished I'd let him get his other arm broken.

"Tell him," I said sharply, "that the Grey Wardens know what happened at Ostagar and, if he thinks he can outmanoeuvre the Blight, he's wrong."

Something changed behind those hard, angry eyes. The captain's white, sweaty face seemed, just for a moment, fearful. He opened his mouth, but right now I had the advantage, and I wasn't about to let it go.

"Now get out!" I said, raising my voice and turning, catching the whole band of them up in what I hoped was a suitably wrathful gesture. "All of you!"

The teyrn's men bolted for the door, the greasy little corporal aiding his injured captain. Several of them were sporting cut lips and bloody faces, I noted, with rather unpleasant pride. Then again, my knuckles were throbbing and scraped raw… but at least everyone else seemed all right.

I cast a glance around the tavern, taking in the terrified faces, smashed chairs, and blood on the floor with a sinking sense of culpable embarrassment.

"Ahem."

The innkeeper rose from behind the bar and looked at us meaningfully over his thick, greying moustache.

"Er…." I said, aware of how very quiet it suddenly seemed. "Sorry about the mess."

There was a drawn-out silence, in which the man gave me a long, considering stare. Eventually, he shrugged.

"Eh, they had it coming, and they were trouble enough themselves. So long as you don't start anything else, I won't get excited."

It was as if someone had touched a feather to the glass-smooth surface of a pond, and ripples were free to spread across its width once more. A breath of relief seemed to gust through the tavern and, slowly, the buzz of normal conversation and movement returned. The bards even resumed their performance, with the strains of a lute picking up the first few bars of _If I Were A Soldier_… which I could only assume was someone's idea of a joke.

"Now then, folks." The innkeeper cleared his throat pointedly. "What can I get you?"

"Ah." I glanced back at my companions. The price of a round of drinks was probably worth the inconvenience we'd caused him. "Um…."

We ended up crowded around a small, rickety wooden table near the fire, with people staring at us like we might be about to start smashing the place up again at the slightest provocation. Coin purse completely emptied, we each nursed a mug of ale the innkeeper had overcharged massively for, and tried to look relaxed. The only one of us succeeding at that was Maethor, sprawled out on his back with his legs in the air, warming his belly in front of the flames.

The whispers were already moving. I could feel them winding their way through the firelight, heavy and barbed, changing as they spread from the tavern and out into the dusty streets beyond. Our presence was known now, and it wouldn't be safe to linger.

The Orlesian sister had joined us. She hadn't asked; just sat down at the table, beside Morrigan, and started smiling at us encouragingly. It made things extremely awkward.

"I apologise for interfering," she said, "but I couldn't just sit by and not help. Let me introduce myself. I am Leliana, one of the lay sisters of the chantry here in Lothering."

She extended a pale, smooth-skinned hand with nails shaped like almonds, and that cheerful little smile broadened. The firelight danced on her skin, and lent a slightly mysterious cast to that bright, glass-like gaze. I couldn't escape the feeling that, somehow, she was looking straight through me, into some other world.

"Er… right." I reached out and shook her hand gingerly, the drying blood cracking on my knuckles. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Merien. This is Alistair, and Morrigan… that's Maethor."

The mabari looked up at us over a swathe of warm, pink belly, and wagged his tail. Alistair cleared his throat.

"So, uh, tell me," he said, idly thumbing the handle of his mug, "where does a lay sister learn to fight like that?"

Leliana's smile became a shy, secret twist of prettily shaped lips; a coquettish flutter of those unusually pale eyes.

"I wasn't born in the Chantry, you know," she said, with the tone of reproach a woman might use to warn a man he hasn't commented on her new hairstyle. "Many of us had more… colourful lives before we joined."

"Ah… huh." Alistair lifted his pint and took a long swallow.

Morrigan wore an expression of barely concealed distaste, shoulders hunched, one elbow propped on the sticky table, and long fingers tapping out patterns on the rim of her mug. She was watching the door, I imagined, and waiting to see if we would have any further unexpected surprises.

All I wanted to do was get rid of the strange foreign woman with the penchant for concealed weaponry, and get going. Food would have to wait. We'd be bound to find a farmhold or somewhere we could buy—or if need came to it—liberate a chicken or two.

Leliana turned that disarming smile on me.

"They said you were Grey Wardens," she said conversationally.

I fought the urge to look around me. There wasn't anyone here who didn't already know and, if they weren't prepared to rush us when the teyrn's men were here and armed, they weren't going to do it now. I nodded, aware that every word was being overheard.

"We are."

"_She's_ not," Alistair added, looking at Morrigan. "They don't let just anyone in, y'know."

She curled her lip at him and, from the fire-warmed rushes, Maethor made a small canine groan of dissent. I wasn't sure if he was taking sides, or just threatening violence if they started up again.

"Hmm." Leliana tipped her head to the side; a quick, rather bird-like movement, I thought, and surprising in one who seemed to radiate such a sense of calm. "I'm surprised you're an elf, but elves must want the Blight defeated as much as humans, no?"

Something about the way she said it—that smooth, almost dismissive tone, papered over by the pretty, cadenced accent—raised my hackles.

_They say that, in Val Royeaux, ten thousand elves live in a space no bigger than Denerim's market, and the walls are so high that daylight doesn't reach the vhenadahl until midday…._

I tried not to dwell on the thought. Snippets of memory: stories, rumours… nothing more. Every alienage wanted to believe it had it better than every other. In Val Royeaux, they probably said the same thing about Denerim.

"I suppose so," I said carefully.

"Well, I know after what happened, you'll need all the help you can get. That's why I'm coming along."

My mug halted halfway to my lips. Morrigan snorted, and Alistair was trying to pretend he hadn't just choked on his ale.

I raised an eyebrow. "Er… sorry?"

Leliana seemed unfazed. She just kept looking at me with that small, cheerful, unflappable smile.

"Look, that's very, um—" I set my mug down on the table, staring into its froth-rimed innards in the hope of finding some kind of useful ammunition there. "—kind of you. But… really… we're just heading to Redcliffe, and—"

"Why would you _want _to come with us?" Alistair asked. "Exactly?"

"The Maker told me to," she said, with serene gravity.

Morrigan sniggered, and swigged her ale. I didn't dare look at Alistair. The woman obviously meant well, but we really didn't need a religious lunatic trailing after us. I suspected it was going to be hard enough to convince Arl Eamon of our story in the first place.

"Er. Right," I said. "Um…."

Leliana's smile faltered and she blinked, looking down at the tabletop.

"I-I know that sounds… absolutely insane. But it's true! I had a dream… a vision."

"More crazy?" Alistair muttered. "I thought we were all full up."

I shot him a reproachful glance, though it was hard to actually disagree. Yet, in the shifting firelight, with the bards playing and the quiet, subdued murmur of conversation pressing in around us, Leliana didn't seem crazy. There was an honesty to the way she spoke, a seriousness in those pale eyes that was difficult to ignore.

"Look at the people here," she said. "They are lost in their despair, and this darkness, this chaos… it will spread."

I didn't need to turn in my seat to see what she meant. Row upon row of refugees, the lost and the hungry… it was far too easy to picture the horde washing north, bringing darkness and destruction with it. And it wasn't just the darkspawn that threatened the land. A tide of panic pushed ahead of them, I realised. People began to flee their homes, which opened up the way for thieves and bandits, the desperate and the dishonest. Rumours ran riot, grew warped and blackened and, once madness got its foot in the door, the whole structure of life began to topple.

It was quite possible that Lothering would have ripped itself to pieces long before the darkspawn actually got here.

"The Maker doesn't want this," Leliana said earnestly. "You are Grey Wardens. What you do, what you are _meant_ to do, is the Maker's work. Let me help!"

I blinked, unsure. "Well, we need more than prayers, Sister…."

"I can fight. I can do more than fight. As I said, I was not always a lay sister. I put aside that life when I came here, but now, if it is the Maker's will, I will take it up again. Gladly. Please let me help you."

I sighed, and looked at Alistair.

"Well? What do you think?"

Morrigan scoffed. "You are not seriously considering allowing her to tag along? Your skull must have been cracked worse than Mother thought."

I ignored her. Alistair looked apprehensive.

"The Grey Wardens have always taken allies where they could find them," he said doubtfully. "And we're not in much of a position to turn away help when it's offered. But…."

"We're just going to Redcliffe," I said, as a hopeful smile burst across Leliana's face like a spring dawn. "It's really not a—"

"Thank you!" She almost bounced in her seat. "Truly! I appreciate being given this chance. I will not let you down."

Morrigan groaned and drained the rest of her ale. I smiled uneasily, and we finished our drinks under the innkeeper's watchful eye, given to understand—in no uncertain terms—that we could be on our way now, thank you very much.

_**~o~O~o~**_

We left the tavern and started to head northwards, meaning to pick up the Highway and travel on until nightfall. It was hard to leave like that, when so many people were clearly so much in need—and knowing what fate awaited them—but we had no real choice. The knowledge hung uncomfortably in the air, pale and dreadful, and with the possible exception of Morrigan, I don't think any of us left the village without regrets or discomfort. Certainly, as we struck out from the square, the ale sat sourly in my empty stomach. There was also an angry throbbing in my boots, which promised that, when I finally got to take them off, it wouldn't be a pleasant experience. I supposed some of our problems weren't so far removed from those of the refugees… and perhaps I tried to cling to that, in the hope it would make it easier to walk away.

Trade routes aside, it seemed that part of Lothering's wealth came from a small mine that lay outside the village. We could see the outline of the works as we passed behind the north end of the square, through the rows of boarded-up stores and shuttered houses. Leliana—apparently full of wisdom about everything—informed us that work had halted there almost two weeks ago, the men driven out by strange noises and tremors beneath the ground, and frightened by all the talk of darkspawn in the south. They had battened down the entrances, and left nothing but the wind-powered pump turning, its sails an eerie, rhythmic creak in the still air.

I looked at Alistair, and gathered from the tightness around his eyes and mouth that he was probably thinking much the same thing as me.

_The darkspawn came up through the lower levels. They're everywhere!_

The bastards knew how to find a weakness and exploit it, that was certain. The only question was whether they'd pour out of the ground, or just sweep over the place like a plague. I wondered how much of the countryside they had their claws into already, how far their insidious taint had spread… and how long it would take for me to begin feeling it.

It wasn't a pleasant thought, but I supposed I'd have to ask Alistair about it sooner or later. Try as I might to ignore the questions I had, they niggled at the back of my mind, never entirely forgotten. I knew so little about what I was supposed to have become—what it would mean, the ways it would change me—and he was the only source of knowledge I had on the Grey Wardens. That was worrying in itself, I supposed, reminded of the sheepish way he'd introduced himself back at Ostagar: 'the new Grey Warden'. The Order's junior and general dogsbody, more like, and now here he was—here _we _were—all that was left of it.

Empty crop fields spread out to our right, bare, brown and muddy, the sky a bright, stinging blue against the muted colours of the land. The hard stone line of the Highway curved away to the left, and I supposed it wouldn't be long before we could join it and start picking up our pace. Just under two days, Alistair reckoned it should take us.

We were walking in awkward silence, Maethor padding along ahead and snuffing the ground, widdling up interesting-looking blades of grass and fenceposts, but the rest of us rather subdued by the presence of our new addition. Prior to leaving the tavern, Alistair had asked Leliana if she needed to collect any belongings from the chantry, or speak with her revered mother before she left. Of all of us, I suppose he was the most painfully aware that cloistered brothers and sisters weren't meant to just get up and leave.

It was mildly worrying when she hauled a leather pack out from beneath her chair and shook her head, smiling.

In fact, I found a great deal about her worrying, but I supposed—as he'd pointed out—we were hardly in a position to be choosy about the allies we picked up along our way. Of course, _he_ probably didn't include Morrigan in that statement… but she was still here. Odd, that. I'd half-expected the witch to disappear as soon as we were out of the Wilds, but she'd lingered—and been of more use to us than I really wanted to admit.

I would have liked to have taken a moment to speak with her before we hit the Highway, but the opportunity didn't present itself and, nervous of trying to force such a chance, I hung back, cloth-tongued and hesitant.

At the edge of the village, there was a crossroads and—in the way of such places—a gallows where the condemned would swing in the breeze. The faint shiver of possibility skated through me at the sight of it, whispers of thoughts that reminded me how close I had come to feeling a rope around my own neck… and the bittersweet memories of the man who'd saved me, and now was lost himself.

I pushed them from my mind, and realised that there was a sound here beyond the cawing of the crows perched in the trees. It was the low murmur of a voice, shaping itself around words uttered with all the reverence and solemnity of prayer… just not in any language I'd ever heard spoken.

Maethor barked, and assumed the one-front-paw-raised pointing position he normally reserved for rabbits, his short muzzle twitching as he stared intently at what I now saw was a metal cage, set back behind the gallows. Back in Denerim, the slang for those things was bird coop—the place they put you when they couldn't be arsed to hang you, so it was said. You just got left until you starved, or the rats had your fingers and toes, or some kind passer-by decided to gut you and take your teeth.

There was a prisoner in this one… not that he looked like anything I'd ever seen before. He was enormous, easily bigger than any human, though he was hunched on the floor of the cage, and probably unable to stand to his full height. He'd been left with clothes enough to cover his modesty—a ragged shirt and breeches, barely containing his massive bulk—but they did little to disguise the sheer size and power of the creature. Yet, for all that, he just sat, unmoving as we approached, murmuring his strange and constant chant.

He was dark, but not in the way of any human or elf I'd seen; the tones of his skin were deepest brown and gold, like his flesh was hammered bronze. It lent him a strange, unearthly appearance, and made the pure white of his hair all the more striking. He wore it in rows of tight braids, bound together at the back of his head and hanging down to the middle of his broad shoulders. His ears were pointed, but not like an elf's… more like a human's, just clipped at the tip. His face was all wide planes and sharp angles, as if he'd been carved from some great wall of rock, the rough edges buffed away by a careful sculptor, then life breathed into him by another, higher hand.

"The qunari prisoner," Leliana murmured, drawing to a standstill a few feet from the cage.

A look of immeasurable sadness and pity touched her face, and I had the horrible feeling she was about to ask a favour of us. Yet, instead of rushing on, I was distracted, my mouth framing that strange word she'd used.

"Qunari…?"

I'd seen it written, seen mention of that foreign, warlike race; the greatest threat to Thedas since the Fourth Blight, people said. I hadn't seen one before, though I knew a few of them even showed up in Denerim from time to time, usually as walking enforcement weapons for those who could afford to pay. The Chantry warned they were a violent, bloodthirsty, soulless people… but the prisoner in the cage, quietly intoning his prayers, did not look any of the three.

As if he felt my scrutiny, his chant stopped, his eyes flicked open, and I found myself confronted with a gaze almost as disconcerting as Morrigan's. His eyes were a vivid, reddish violet, rimmed with black, like some bruised and bloodied flower, and they held a look of such intense awareness that I felt instantly humbled, and ignorant.

"You are not one of my captors," he rumbled, in a voice like the slow growth of giant trees. "I have nothing to say that would amuse you, elf. Leave me in peace."

"What are you?" I blurted, my curiosity trampling all over the manners Father had taken such pains to instil in me.

"A prisoner. I'm in a cage, am I not? I was placed here by the Chantry."

"It's true." I was aware of Leliana stepping up behind me, lowering her voice into the kind of stage whisper that can carry across a crowded room. "The revered mother said he slaughtered an entire family. Even the children."

It sounded appalling. My stomach knotted at the mere thought… yet it was hard to doubt the capabilities of the man sitting before us. Each of those colossal hands looked easily able to inflict a killing blow, or crush a windpipe… after all, _I'd_ once killed a man with my bare hands. Well, bare arm. I knew just how hard it was, and how long it took, and I shuddered both at the memory, and the imaginings of what this prisoner must have done, with or without a weapon.

"I-Is that true?" I heard myself ask, perhaps wanting to hear a lie. He didn't _look_ like a ravening killer.

His gaze did not waver. "It is as she says."

My flesh crept. I didn't know what to say, but I found it hard to look away from those strange, solemn eyes. I glanced at the bars of his cage, and frowned.

"They must have had difficulty capturing you."

"No."

He offered no explanation, and his silence did not invite questions. Yet, there was a flicker of something there, some glimpse of… what? Was it regret, or remorse? I wasn't sure, but I was intrigued. Surely, no ruthless, uncaring murderer would sit and wait to be imprisoned for his crime—and Lothering had little in the way of law enforcement to send after such a man.

"He has been here for weeks," Leliana volunteered. "I am surprised he is not dead yet. No food, no water… it is inhumane!"

The qunari looked briefly at her, his face impassive. "I am not human."

The observation set a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. So coldly logical it could almost be taken for sarcasm.

"And… they did not execute you?" I asked.

He inclined his head. "The priestess said she would leave my fate to her god. Either I will be dead before the darkspawn come, or I shall die facing them."

"From in there?" Alistair sounded as horrified as I felt. "With no weapon?"

He was right; it was a sickening image. Morrigan let out a terse, frustrated breath.

"This," she said bitterly, "is a proud and powerful creature, trapped as prey for the horde. If you cannot see a use for him, I suggest releasing him for mercy's sake alone."

Surprised, I glanced at her, almost expecting to see compassion flooding those golden eyes. Instead, there was an almost violent outrage, her mouth a thin line of fury.

Alistair snorted. "Mercy? I wouldn't have expected that from you."

"Hm." She crossed her arms and glared at him, tone suddenly less impassioned than before. "I would also suggest that Alistair take his place in the cage."

"Ah. Yes, _that's_ what I would've expected."

Leliana looked piteously at me. "To be left here to starve, or to be taken by the darkspawn… no one deserves that, not even a murderer. I wonder, would the revered mother release him into your custody? You _are _Grey Wardens."

The qunari raised his head, suddenly seeming interested. I winced, not really comfortable with anyone poking about at the ironic truth behind that statement. That Alistair and I were Grey Wardens was one thing… but neither of us was properly equipped to start conscripting recruits any time soon.

"My people have heard legends of the Grey Wardens' strength and skill," the qunari said, that odd gaze tracking over both of us. "Although I suppose not every legend is true."

Alistair gave a small, rather piqued 'hmph', and I could have sworn I heard the breadth of Morrigan's smile. Still, I was uneasy. We seemed to be acquiring people left, right and centre. First Morrigan, then Maethor, then Leliana… it wasn't as if we trying to raise an army.

My gaze lit on a sizeable rock lying beneath a cluster of straggly plants at the roadside. I bent, picked it up, and weighed it thoughtfully in my hand. Behind me, Leliana and Alistair were debating how best to frame a request to the revered mother.

"Er… what are you going to do with that?" Alistair enquired, breaking for a moment from the argument.

I ignored him, and looked at the qunari.

"What would you do if we freed you?" I asked, watching for change in that mighty, glacial face.

"Seek my atonement in battle," he said solemnly. "Following the Grey Wardens seems as likely to bring my death as waiting here."

I wanted to ask if he could only find atonement through death, but it didn't seem like the moment for a theoretical debate. I wasn't entirely sure about this following us business, either.

"All right," I said instead. "What is your name?"

"I am Sten of the Beresaad—the vanguard—of the qunari peoples."

"And I am Merien." I smiled, which didn't appear to be a concept he was familiar with, and debated the wisdom of calling myself 'of' something… if only I knew quite what it should be.

I brought the rock up under the hinge of the cage and, with a couple of sharp blows, the pin jumped clean out of its bolt. The same technique, applied to the top hinge, had the door loose enough to prise away from the bars, and left the prisoner free to step from the cage.

He looked warily at the ground, then at me.

"Simply opening the cage does not make me free."

I groped for the best piece of philosophy I could find, which was not an easy task.

"Well… perhaps no man is truly free," I ventured. "We are all bound by destiny, duty… honour. And you can always stay there if you'd prefer. At least you'll be able to get a better grip on the darkspawn without the door in the way."

Part of me was amazed at myself. Father always used to say I had my mother's smart mouth, but I didn't usually shoot it off in front of people who looked like they could pick me up and break me in two with one hand.

The qunari appeared to consider his position and, after several moments, began to uncurl himself, setting first one great foot and then the other to the dusty ground. The cage creaked and groaned as he edged himself from it and, finally, he stood before us, seeming surprisingly hale after his captivity.

"And so it is done," he observed. "Now may we proceed? I am eager to be elsewhere."

He wasn't the only one.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's note: Thanks to all continuing to read and review! Been down with stinking flu for the past ten days, so if anything doesn't make sense, it's the hallucinations talking. ;)

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**CHAPTER FOUR

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**

My decision to free the qunari continued to prod at me as we put Lothering behind us and hit the Imperial Highway. In truth, I hadn't really expected him to follow, but there he was: a silent, enormous, implacable presence, keeping stride effortlessly with our strange, ragtag band.

I caught Alistair looking curiously at me a couple of times, and assumed he disagreed with what I'd done. I wouldn't have blamed him. I knew almost nothing about the qunari people beyond what I'd read in books or heard whispered, and little of that was positive. Oh, they were _supposed_ to be at peace, since the Llomerryn Accord—excepting their continued fight with the Imperium—but that didn't wash away the stains of the bloodbath that they'd wrought in the First War and, though Rivain and Par Vollen were a long way from Ferelden, the stories had wings.

Still, despite my lingering unease, I had to admit that the presence of Sten, and perhaps Leliana, had at least drawn a temporary truce from Alistair and Morrigan. She had gained back a little of her former poise, stalking along with her head up and her staff striking at the ground with rhythmic, echoing clips against the pitted stone of the road. He was quiet and withdrawn again, as he'd been when we first left Flemeth's hut, and after the silence settled so heavily around our little group, I started to wonder whether I hadn't preferred the bickering.

The only one of us who didn't seem awkward and subdued was Maethor, trotting ahead happily and carrying out his usual combination of sniffing and peeing as geographical surveillance.

As for me, my thoughts pattered all over the place, like raindrops, each one muddying up the puddle of my mind… and they were just as easy to control. I was tired. Bone-achingly tired, unused as I was to the kind of route march we'd been on over the past few days. Ponderings of the qunari gave way to wondering about Leliana, and how it had come to be that she had apparently already left the cloister before she met us. No one had quite managed to ask her that yet—or just how an Orlesian had ended up there in the first place. An Orlesian who had visions in which the Maker spoke to her, no less… which was slightly alarming, I supposed, considering her speed and skill with a blade. After all, the only thing worse than a crazy zealot is acrazy zealot wielding a knife they actually know how to use.

She seemed lucid enough, though. And whether she was crazy or not, who was I to judge a woman running from something? It wasn't as if that made us so very different, to my eyes.

That, naturally, led to the sour ache that came with thinking of home. I'd been doing a little less of it recently, which I almost felt guilty for… as if the heartsickness of the first days after I'd left was a wound that could scab over, and become a dull throb instead of an insistent, biting sting.

It _could_, perhaps, until I thought about it. Everything started to come back then; pale flurries of possibilities, the ghosts of panic and desperate hope, interwoven with the faces of those I longed to see again.

_They __will be safe enough. _

I wanted to believe Duncan had been right, but—Maker forgive me, I thought—despite how much he'd done for me, and the perfidy of his death, I wasn't sure I trusted any human that much.

Would they be all right? I'd hoped that Lothering would offer some chance to hear news from Denerim, or maybe send a letter or something… just some shred of communication. If the worst had happened, and Arl Urien had ordered a purge (and I shuddered to even think the word), then word would have started to travel, wouldn't it? How long did news take to get this far south from the capital? Damn it, I didn't even know how many days it had been since I left, or since Ostagar, or… anything. Flemeth had never been exactly forthcoming on the subject of how long Alistair and I had lain unconscious in her hut, or how badly we'd really been hurt.

I didn't remember much from the last of the battle. Just the pain, and the noise, and… blackness, folding over me like some nightmarish sea. Parts of me still twinged and itched and throbbed, but beyond that I had no idea what kind of state I'd been in when Flemeth—did whatever she'd done. I wasn't sure I wanted to speculate on the details.

It all still seemed so unreal, in so many ways. Yet we kept walking, and the blisters and the constant, changeless pace of the road felt real enough; grindingly real, like only things which are muddy, cold, and unpleasant can.

Alistair was the first to break the silence, as the grubby little shape of Lothering disappeared over the horizon behind us, leaving nothing but the smudges of chimney smoke against the sky.

"I wonder what's going to happen to all those people."

An inane statement, on the face of it. We _knew_—he and I probably better than most—what awaited that place, already defenceless and consumed by despair. I wondered how long he'd been thinking about it.

"Some of them will find their way to Denerim," Leliana said. "Many will die. It is as the Maker wills."

Morrigan laughed sharply. "And that is the mercy of your Chantry, is it? I am so glad _I _am not dependent on such tender charity!"

"I thought you believed in letting the weak die off," Alistair sniped.

"It is the natural order," she said, with a blithe certainty in her voice that I could only dream of.

"If the Blight isn't stopped," Leliana observed, "everyone will die. Yes, it is hard to leave those who are suffering, but we are serving the greater good, are we not?"

Her words brought back a horrible reminder of the Joining, and a flash of irrational anger coursed through me. What did she know about the greater good, the burden of sacrifice… and what did I know about _her_, I reminded myself. I held my tongue.

Alistair didn't sound convinced, at any rate. "So it's all right to let some people die for the greater good? I… I'm not so sure about that. I felt bad leaving all those people there, all panicked and helpless."

He'd been thinking about it for a while, then. As had we all, I suspected.

"You are doing what you must, Alistair," Leliana said smoothly. "There will be worse to come yet, I am sure. You will need to steel yourself… you know this, surely?"

"Yes, but… I've never been very good at that. The steeling myself part. I find it better sometimes to just be a little weak."

His tone was dry, but I remembered his grief in the Wilds, and flattered myself that I understood; compassion wasn't weakness, but the weak are seldom called to wield the hardest judgements.

"A _little_?"

Morrigan spluttered, drawing breath to make some further charming comment, and I decided it was time to blurt out my contribution to the discussion.

"Is it me, or is the light starting to go? Anyone else think we ought to find somewhere to make camp before it gets dark?"

I could have just told them all to shut up, I supposed. But, despite the fact I was walking at the front of the group, I didn't feel that much like a leader.

_**~o~O~o~**_

It did turn out to be almost dark by the time we found somewhere to pitch camp. The Highway had been oddly quiet—we passed nothing but a couple of covered wagons and a farmer's ox-cart—and Lothering was fast becoming a distant memory beyond the horizon. There was little but open fields, acres of brown mud and the stubble of recently harvested crops, until we eventually hit upon a small copse at the side of the road, dividing one farm from another.

Further investigation revealed it to be free of bandits, refugees, darkspawn, or anything else unpleasant, and there was even a clean, narrow brook running through it, offering good drinking water and a chance to wash up properly.

For me, that was better than any prospect of rest or hot food… the result, I supposed, of being raised to the scrupulous standards of alienage hygiene. Back home, we had two standpipes by the privies, and anyone who didn't make full use of them was considered to be showing herself up, with greasy hair or a dirty face second only in squalid dishonour to a grubby doorstep. Every morning I used to fetch sufficient water for Father and I to scrub ourselves, with enough left over for me to do out the floors, table, front step and the open gutter that ran past the door. Baths were twice weekly, and meant at least four trips to the pump, plus time spent heating the water over the fire, but it was always worth it.

I thought of the last bath I'd had; the one Shianni had drawn for me as I slept, the morning she snuck in and started on the chores, because that was the day I was supposed to be a bride. Her laughing as she woke me up, the firelight dancing on her face, and those clever fingers of hers working the knots and kinks out of my wet hair as I sat there, nervous as a new lamb….

"Best get some wood together, then," Alistair said, dumping his pack, sword and shield next to a convenient tree stump. "See if we can get a fire going."

I blinked, brought suddenly and rather abruptly back to this damp, chilly clearing, with the rustle of leaves underfoot and the earthy smell of mud and rotting wood on the dimming air.

"I'll go," I volunteered, setting my own kit down.

It didn't take long for me to discover—never having been much of an outdoorsman—that a great deal less wood than can be found lying around under trees is actually useful for anything. I was tossing down the umpteenth damp stick when a crack overhead made me flinch and, looking up, I found Sten nonchalantly breaking off a large part of a tree branch.

He gave me a look I could only think of as weary, and it worried me that someone as large as him should be able to move so quietly.

"Thank you." I cleared my throat. "Er… I was meaning to ask you, Sten. Are you all right? You were in that cage for a long time."

"You are concerned?" He stripped the remaining leaves from the branch by running one huge hand down its length, then proceeded to break it neatly in two. I swallowed hard as that violet gaze flicked dismissively over me. "No need. I am fit enough to fight."

"Well, that wasn't quite what I—" I tried another tack. "You were in there for weeks. That's a long time to go without food or water."

"For you, maybe."

"All right." I tucked a dryish piece of kindling under my arm, and wondered if he was being purposely difficult. "Forgive my ignorance, but I've never seen a qunari before. I don't know what's… normal for you. Perhaps, if you told me something of your peop—"

Another great crack, and another branch came down. He'd obviously decided we were never going to get enough dry wood if the job was left to me… and he probably had a point.

"No."

The word thudded with finality, but it wasn't an angry denial; just a statement of fact. I was nonplussed.

"Um. Please?"

Sten snorted, and stripped down the second branch. "People are not simple. They cannot be summarised for easy reference in the manner of 'The elves are a lithe, pointy-eared people who excel at poverty'."

Heat flamed in my cheeks, and I was grateful for the growing darkness.

"Right, then," I mumbled, scrabbling for the few bits of dry wood I'd gathered and heading back to the clearing.

Well, that shut me up. Had I been braver, or had the qunari been smaller, I might have been angry, all that new-found bravado of mine boiling over into argumentative rage. Instead, I just hunched up and scurried, embarrassed and then furious with myself.

It was a bitter and poisonous truth, that was the worst of it… beyond the fact that an outsider—someone more of an outsider even than _I _would ever be—could be so eloquently, unpleasantly cruel. I dumped the wood back to where Alistair was fiddling about with flint and tinder, and turned the things the Chantry said about the qunari over in my mind, quietly adding 'arsehole' to the list of barbarisms.

Something else bothered me, too, and had been niggling at me since the Highway. All this talk of fighting, and the worse things there were to come…. Somehow, I'd managed not to think of it, or to think of it in such abstract terms as barely touched me at all. It wasn't true, though: I would still have to fight. This war, this Blight, was still coming, irrefutable and inescapable, and I felt less able to cope with it than ever before.

I was a fool, a child. What had I thought would happen? We would go to Redcliffe, tell Arl Eamon our tale, then sit cosily by the fire while someone else took care of the darkspawn?

The night seemed to fold in closer, and there was little comfort to be found in the darkness.

Somewhere behind me, Alistair bashed his thumb with the flint and yelped. I heard a dry, throaty chuckle, and turned to see Morrigan standing a little way to my right, her thin lips curled into a smug smile and her arms full of folded clothes. She shifted her gaze to me, and for once it was not entirely cold.

"Here." She held out the pile of garments. "I have no notion of what will fit either of you, but at least you shan't be so… offensive to the rest of us."

I smiled, despite myself. They were the same kind of third- and fourth-hand clothes as the lay sisters had been handing out to the refugees in Lothering; a couple of over-darned shirts and smocks, and a few pairs of socks. Not much, but better than the rags I was wearing under my wrecked armour.

"Thank you, Morrigan."

She sneered, exhaled irritably and made to stomp off back to her own little corner of the campground, already staked out as far as possible from everyone else, and marked by her staff, stuck into the ground like a pike.

"Wait," I said, seizing my moment. "I… I'd like to ask you something."

She halted, mid-turn, the raven feathers on the shoulders of her robe ruffling slightly, as if hunched in apprehension. The grainy, dim light picked a thin slice of blue along her pale jaw, and I could just make out the corner of her mouth twitch.

"Oh? If you must, I suppose."

I was ready for it when she faced me, prepared for the full strength of the folded arms and the dismissive, tawny gaze, as if I was nothing more than something unpleasant that, once stepped in, could be wiped upon the nearest tussock. It didn't bother me as much as it might have done. Perhaps, I supposed, because if she were truly as cruel and vicious as she made out, she'd have resorted to violence with Alistair by now.

Still, I clasped the clothes tightly to my chest as I spoke.

"You, er… you've never been this far out of the Wilds before, have you?"

Morrigan arched her brows, the broad sweeps of dark shadow with which she painted her face shifting like wraiths. "I have entered the world of men from time to time, though 'tis true I always returned. Mother… wished me to expand my horizons beyond the forest. Why do you ask?"

"Well… is it what _you_ want?"

Something that—had I not known better—I might have taken for confusion flitted across her face, and was quickly swallowed. She was silent for a few moments but, when she spoke, there was a hunger in her voice that I'd not heard before, laced with an unguarded quality that sounded almost like hope.

"What I want… what I _want_ is to see mountains. I wish to witness the ocean and step into its waters. I want to experience a city rather than see it in my mind." She fixed me with an eerily intent gaze, as if daring me to repeat any of that to anyone else, and her mouth flexed into the smallest hint of an acquiescent smile. "So, yes, this is what I want. I suppose."

"Good." I nodded slowly. "Um. Thanks again for the… clothes."

_**~o~O~o~**_

Alistair had actually got the fire going and, when I ambled over, he was sprawled proudly in front of it, unlacing his boots.

"Here you go," I said, tossing over his portion of the clean clothes. "I don't know what you've still got, but… better than nothing, right?"

He held up one of the shirts, and poked a finger through a hole under the arm.

"Hmm. Probably."

I smiled, and sat down gratefully in front of the fire. At least, with what few bits of equipment we'd managed to scrape together, we might make it to Redcliffe looking halfway to presentable, instead of resembling a rabble of complete lunatics. Still, as I eyed the ravaged remains of my pack, I could have wished I'd salvaged more.

The brown dress Valora had given me had survived, wadded up at the bottom, though it was stained with who knew what, and horribly crumpled. Of the various culinary treasures I'd bought at Ostagar, two pouches of seasoning and one small, limp packet of sugared pound cake had made it, though not even Maethor would eat the cake. Pretty much all I'd had of home was gone, however, and that hurt.

"Well," Alistair announced, as I was still staring mournfully at the few belongings I had left. "I think I'll go and scrub up. Leliana said she'd cook supper."

I glanced up in faint alarm. "Really? How… nice."

"Yes. Isn't it? You never know, she might see the future in the soup pot."

He smirked and headed off down to the brook. I put my pack aside and looked warily at my boots.

_Time for you to come off_.

I hadn't been looking forward to this. Back home, I'd never been exactly idle, but this level of exertion was new to me. Given that I had still been a child to elven eyes—and given Father's slightly over-protective nature—I'd never been allowed out of the alienage to take casual work in the market, or elsewhere in the city. I'd done what we called 'gate trade'; scrabbling together slightly bruised fruit, or flowers, or whatever odds and ends were available, and selling them at cut prices off barrows by the alienage's market-side gate. Other elves bought the goods, or sometimes shems who couldn't afford anything better, or felt sorry for us and wanted the warm, fuzzy glow of charity.

In any case, save for going to collect the goods in the early morning, it was a matter of standing rather than walking, and I was learning just how different a prolonged route march was to simply being on my feet all day.

I gritted my teeth as I eased the boot off my left foot and gently tugged off the outer sock. It was wet and filthy, crusted with grime and mud, and I tossed it aside, bracing myself for peeling off the next layer.

"Oww…." I moaned to myself, as I began to unroll the second sock.

A large, soggy, white piece of skin sloughed off along with it, and I wrinkled my nose. The fire crackled to itself, and I propped my ankle across my right knee, reluctantly ready to inspect the damage.

I'd never walked so far in my life, and pain wasn't the only payment.

Blisters the size of sovereigns weltered on the ball and heel of my foot, and just beside the base of my big toe. It was a mess: flesh rubbed red-raw, dotted with swollen, fluid-filled lumps—one already burst and oozing—and ragged bits of skin peeling at the slightest touch.

"Eww."

"You'll get used to it," Alistair observed, padding back into the shifting circle of firelight.

I glanced up, surprised I hadn't heard him coming. He hadn't taken long, but he looked better for it, even in the ill-fitting, fourth-hand shirt and breeches. His hair was damp, and his skin bore a fresh, scrubbed pinkness.

"I mean," he added thoughtfully, "used to it in that you won't get so many. Not that you'll just not notice them. You can't not notice blisters."

"No," I agreed, gingerly lowering my foot so that only my heel rested on the ground, and beginning to unlace my other boot. "I'd noticed that."

The wordplay seemed to amuse him, though he stopped grinning when he looked at my foot.

"Ouch! That _is _bad."

I didn't offer a comment, having my teeth clenched as I levered my other boot off and started peeling down the outer sock. My feet might as well have been on fire.

Alistair wandered over to his pack and started ferreting through it. I didn't pay much attention, concentrating on unearthing the equally unpleasant state of my right foot.

"Here you go."

I looked up, holding one sweaty sock, replete with bits of blister-skin dropping from it, between my thumb and forefinger. He was proffering a small earthenware jar with a smudged label, and a roll of densely-woven bandages.

"Soldier's best friend," he said helpfully. "Elfroot and slippery weed."

I dropped the vile sock into the top of my boot and took the jar.

"Thanks."

Tentatively, I unstopped it and peered inside. The ointment within was a virulent shade of green, and stank of hog's lard and something else… a bit like rotten cabbage. I pulled a face.

"Maker's breath!"

Alistair chuckled. He didn't have to be so kind to me, I reflected, but I was glad of it. He fetched a cloth, wetted in the brook, and hung around while I dabbed at my feet, wincing and muttering words under my breath that Father would probably have been surprised I knew. The ointment stung like crazy, so I supposed it must be doing some good.

"Want some help with the bandages?"

I hesitated, unnerved to discover I'd already opened my mouth to say 'yes, please'. The bonds of comradeship between us were still new, however intense the fires in which they'd been forged, and despite the oaths of the Joining, that bound us as sworn kin, of a sort, I wasn't sure I wanted Alistair touching my feet.

He was still a human, I told myself… yet now I found I shrank from that justification, as if I was ashamed of hiding behind it.

The world I had stepped into was bigger than the alienage. So much bigger, and it grew wider with every moment. I had to grow too, I knew, but I'd never felt smaller. And now, just to compound all my prejudices and pass them back to me, tied up neatly with a ribbon of congratulation, Alistair was on his knees in front of me, carefully bandaging my bloody, oozing feet.

Wonderful.

"I don't mind," he said cheerfully, as I dug my fingers into the cold ground and tried not to squeak. "Long as you don't kick my teeth out."

"Can't… promise," I managed. "Ouch!"

He tied off the left foot and moved on to the right, and I blinked dampness from my eyes.

"We'll have to see about getting you boots that fit properly as soon as we get to Redcliffe." A faint smile tugged at his mouth. "Hmm. They say an army marches on its stomach, but Duncan always said they wouldn't get past breakfast without good boots."

The words trailed off into awkward silence, and I watched his smile pall and fade. Alistair tucked the end of the bandage in at my ankle and cleared his throat, making a show of wiping the traces of ointment from his hands.

I bit my lip.

"Er, look. If… you, uh, want to talk about it…." I offered. He looked blankly at me, so I tried again. "Um. About… Duncan, I mean."

Alistair's expression tightened, but it didn't hide the momentary flash of pain that crossed his eyes.

"You don't have to do that," he said briskly, rocking back on his heels. "I know you didn't know him as long as I did."

He turned his face to the fire, and the shifting planes of light danced over his profile. I watched the ripple of self-control falter, noted the rapid blinking.

"All right." I shrugged. "But, if you need to talk…."

He held it for a moment, and then he sagged, shoulders bowing forwards as he frowned at the musty earth. A muscle jumped rhythmically in his jaw, like he was counting the losses all over again, the spare end of the roll of bandage trailing uselessly in his fingers.

"I should have handled it better," he muttered. "Duncan warned me right from the beginning that this could happen. Any of us could die in battle."

"You couldn't have prepared for it," I said, looking diplomatically into the flames as his voice started to thicken. "No one could have been ready for what happened."

"But I shouldn't have lost it, not when so much is riding on us, not with the Blight and… and everything. I'm sorry."

I frowned; slightly startled, I suppose. He didn't owe me any kind of contrition.

"It's all right," I murmured, stupidly surprised at the fact I reached out and laid my hand on his arm. "You don't have to apologise to me."

We both looked at it; my lean, freckly hand, dried blood crazing the grazed knuckles, all hard joints and short, stubby nails. Somehow incongruous against his clean shirt, I thought, and perhaps a familiarity too far. I removed it, just in case, and glanced across the camp, pleased to find that the others were busying themselves elsewhere, unlikely to overhear or disturb us.

I heard Alistair's tell-tale sniff and, as I looked back at him, caught the furtive swipe of a knuckle passing over an eye. He smiled weakly at me.

"Thanks. I'd… like to have a proper funeral for him. Maybe once this is all done, if we're still alive. I don't think he had any family to speak of."

"He had you," I said. "And the rest of the Grey Wardens."

"I suppose he did." Another damp, wan smile. "You know, it probably sounds stupid, but part of me wishes I was with him. In the battle. I feel like I abandoned him."

My throat tightened, fingers of the same sharp sting of loss squeezing my heart.

"Mm-nn." I shook my head. "It doesn't sound stupid. I… I understand that."

The fire crackled, and he gave a small, mirthless chuckle.

"Of course I'd be dead, then, wouldn't I? It's not like that would make him happier."

I stared at the flames for a moment, watching the colours dance in and out of each other, weaving themselves into shapes and patterns. Mother used to say the future spoke in the fire, if you knew how to read it… but she'd never told me how, or even claimed to have that knowledge.

"Do the Wardens do anything special for their fallen?" I asked, trying to prod Alistair gently away from the maudlin end of his grief. "I mean, is there a—"

He sighed. "I really don't know. I wish I did. Duncan came from Highever, I think, or so he said. Maybe I'll go out there sometime, see about putting something up in his honour. I don't know."

"That sounds nice," I agreed. "S'a good idea."

"Hm."

We both sat and stared at the fire in companionable silence for a moment, me stretching out my bandaged feet and letting the warmth baste them, and him fiddling with the end of the roll of dressing, something apparently niggling at him. Eventually, Alistair looked at me, a strange curiosity in his face.

"Have you… had someone close to you die?" he asked tentatively. "Er. That is, I don't mean to pry, I just—"

"Yes," I said shortly, and realised at once I'd been too blunt.

I didn't want him to regret asking, but what could I say? There were too many faces behind my eyes, too many names that crowded for my attention. I chose the deepest hurt, not the freshest.

"My… my mother died, about eight years ago," I said, the words feeling clumsy and heavy on my tongue.

"I'm sorry."

I gave him the mask of a smile: an acknowledgement of his sympathy without really looking at him. It wasn't a story I could share, I knew that. Not with him. Mother's quick, dark eyes—rich as port wine—looked out at me from a sunlit corner of memory, smiling and gently chiding. She'd never have wanted me to be bitter… but I still didn't want to talk about it.

Father would have had her do nothing but gate trade, if he'd had his way. He certainly didn't want her working, as he did, at some noble's estate with its delicate balance of perks and payouts. Mother was, after all, a pretty woman. And she was stubborn.

She used to hate watching him come home, worn through and exhausted, but Father wouldn't budge. It was one of the few times I ever saw them really fight. Eventually, she compromised and found herself a job in the market, fetching and carrying for one of the traders. If she had only known when to keep her mouth shut, she'd have been fine.

I wasn't there the day it happened, but I heard it all second-hand… and when they shut the outer gate, to stop the trouble spreading, I was in the crowd. Through the pitted metal bars, I saw the blood on the cobblestones, marking the place she fell.

An argument broke out, apparently, over some item or other being low-grade, some coin short-weight. The trader's honesty was called into question, it turned ugly, and the guard intervened. Mother—being the nearest elf to hand—was blamed, and she could just have accepted it, had her wages garnished, and gone home in one piece. But she resented being called a thief. She shot her mouth off, they said, and when some shem guard slapped her to the ground and called her an insolent wench, she came up fighting.

It was a stupid thing to do, and I was angry with her for so long afterwards…. Father was too, I imagine, though I think for him the guilt weighed heavier.

We were lucky to get her back. I helped Nera, the hahren's sister, lay her out before we wrapped her up and took her to the paupers' field. I didn't do much—just washed the blood off and tried not to think about how cold she was—but it made a memory that time would never diminish, and helped carve a gulf that was hard for me to bridge.

"Anyway, it's hardly the same." I cleared my throat and blinked at the damp, shadowy ground. "But I… I have… lost enough to understand, I think."

An odd look crossed Alistair's eyes. For a moment, I thought it was pity, but then it seemed to even out into something else, something quietly respectful, that I wasn't used to seeing in his kind.

"Yes, I… I imagine you really have." The silence that folded around his words hung on just long enough to begin to grow awkward, and then he smiled, broader this time. "Thank you. Really. I mean it. It was good to talk about it, especially with someone I… hope I can call a friend."

He dusted his palms against his knees, and rose, looking vaguely self-conscious.

My cheeks warmed, equal parts embarrassment and a peculiar sense of pride… of belonging, I supposed, however strange that was. I smiled up at him.

"Hey… maybe I'll go to Highever with you, when you go."

Alistair nodded. "I'd like that. Duncan would, too, I think."

I hoped so.

_**~o~O~o~**_

The dreams came that night.

For supper, Leliana favoured us with rations she said the revered mother had given her for her journey—tough, nutty, wholegrain biscuits, and dried vegetables she boiled into a weak broth—but she still managed to deflect questions about exactly why she'd been in the process of leaving. We were probably all too tired to argue, and as thin, watery moonlight filtered down through the trees, we all peeled away and bedded down, each seeking their own small attempt at privacy without straying too far from the comfort of the fire.

It felt strange, trying to settle to sleep in breeches and a third-hand undershirt, on an unfamiliar bedroll and in the presence of three humans… and Sten. He was silent and seemingly disapproving as ever, apparently unsurprised that we were all weak enough to need sleep and food, but annoyed at the delay nevertheless. I thought I'd lie there, petrified of him killing us all in the night, but I was out like a candle as soon as I closed my eyes.

I slept densely at first, but then they stole in—the dreams—blackening the smudged, blurry hours before dawn, when nothing felt real anyway, and I thought the Veil would rip right open and swallow me whole.

They started normally enough. Faces I knew, people I missed… Shianni standing at the water pump, looking at me over her shoulder and demanding to know why I wasn't helping, when I knew we had to fill the ocean by sundown, and all we had to do it with were two buckets that just kept on shrinking. Soris and Valora were there, and she was carrying a baby, wrapped up in a blue shawl. It had blond hair, and bright blue eyes. I wanted to know where Father was, but everyone kept saying he was busy, and Shianni kept complaining about the buckets… and then her voice started to change.

I shifted in my sleep, trying to get away from the feeling that something was wrong, but I couldn't escape it. The words melted, the shapes dropping away until there was nothing but a jagged, bitter roar, and I was certain I was back in the Tower of Ishal, ready to feel the heat of fires on my skin and the breath of monsters on my face. There was battle-blood, and screaming, and the sleep-clogged mires of my mind reached out for things to attach the images to; for Duncan, and the king, and the fallen whom I still felt, somehow, that I'd failed. Yet it wasn't Duncan who filled my dreams. No familiar face came to me from the weaving planes of shape and colour… just a wall of rock, red as blood and heaving with black bodies. I struggled against it, afraid of the void and of falling, and every terror I'd endured as the dreams that came with the Joining claimed me—and, this time, it was no better.

The roar became identifiable, in two parts. One was the bloodlust of the horde—a constant, horrendous pulse—and the other was the dragon. It threshed, it screamed, it… growled like some hideous, pained beast, mad with fear and anger and the hunger for revenge. The stench of blood and rot choked me. Decay was everywhere, staining the walls of the chasm, everything corrupted with filth and the violent, sulphuric stink of the place. The noise swelled and keened, drilling through my head until I was sure my skull cracked open, and I could feel myself about to fall, teetering as I had before on the edge of a long, dark abyss. The rage pulled at me, the ravening snares of minds that were not my own, hungers that were not mine… I could almost taste the foul, rotten bloom of blood in my mouth. And then I woke, sweating, the blanket kicked clear of my legs and the light in the clearing blurry, bluish and grainy. The fire had burned down to embers, glowing gently beneath a mantle of white ash.

I stared at it muzzily, trying to breathe deeply and convince myself that I was all right.

"Bad dreams, huh?"

I flinched. Alistair was developing the unnerving habit of catching me at my most vulnerable… though, given the kind of mess we'd each seen the other in, I supposed any illusions I had of privacy or dignity should have been long gone.

He was lacing his boots on the other side of the fire. It wasn't yet light enough to be too close to dawn but, beyond him, I could make out the shapes of other movement. Early start for everyone, apparently.

"It seemed so… real," I said thickly, rubbing at my eyes.

He straightened up, the shadows clinging to him and making his expression hard to read. I could see he'd donned most of the armour he'd bought in Lothering, and wondered whether it was a case of expecting trouble on the road, or just being prepared.

"Well, it is real," he said matter-of-factly. "Sort of. You're starting to… hear them. Bet you wondered how long it would take."

"Mm." I started to roll my blanket up. "Couldn't wait."

"I know what it's like," Alistair said, and I knew it would be churlish to refuse the offer of sympathy. I looked up at him, and caught the flicker of fear in his eyes. "The archdemon, it… 'talks' to the horde, and we feel it just as they do. It was scary at first for me, too."

A shiver traced the back of my neck, and I frowned.

"The dragon, you mean? That's the…?"

He nodded. "Well, I don't know if really _is _a dragon, but it sure looks like one, yes. You know, it takes a bit, but eventually you can block the dreams out."

I was tempted to ask if _he_ could, but from the look on his face I doubted it and, at that moment, I only wanted to think of Alistair as the Grey Warden I would become. I wanted him to know all the answers, and have none of the weaknesses that scared me.

"Right."

He cleared his throat. "Anyhow, when I heard you thrashing around, I thought I should tell you."

I marshalled a weak and rather feeble smile. "Thanks. Appreciate it."

"Well, that's what I'm here for. To deliver unpleasant news and witty one-liners."

He grinned, though it wasn't entirely convincing, and I wondered if he'd had the same dream and, if he had, how recently it had pulled him from his sleep.

Either way, we couldn't get to Redcliffe soon enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE**

**

* * *

**

Two days, that was the theory. With Lothering behind us, we'd use the straight, clear route of the Highway to take us north, about a day's march, then break for camp, bear west at first light, and be in Redcliffe by nightfall. Apparently. Alistair _said _he knew where he was going, anyway.

Admittedly, there weren't any wrong turns to take on the Highway. It was just mile after repetitive mile of stone, and any sense of familiarity it had, any ability to remind me of the cracked flagstones and mossy plantlife of Ostagar, soon wore its welcome very thin.

The ice was breaking within our little group, however. Sten remained his wordless, impassive self, though I saw him watching Maethor trot ahead, with all the interest of a man looking at a new kind of siege weapon. I made a mental note, if I attempted conversation with the qunari again, to say something about dogs.

Leliana started to sing a little while after sunrise. The sky was drenched with pink-edged floods of gold and grey, and her song was one I'd heard in childhood, about a tavern girl who gave her life to save the highwayman she loved from the gallows. Her voice was very sweet, clear and pure as crystal, with a freshness to it that made the song seem more beautiful than I remembered. It certainly took my mind off my blisters and, for once, not even Morrigan had anything snide to say.

When, an hour or so later, Leliana fell into stride beside me, I was in a genial enough mood not to immediately recoil from her questions.

"You have not been a Grey Warden for very long, have you?"

"Er… no," I admitted, wondering whether she already knew the answer, or whether my inexperience was that blindingly obvious.

"It is an important calling. You must be very proud."

"Um. I suppose so," I said dubiously, trying not to think of Daveth lying dead on the flagstones, black blood oozing from his mouth, or Jory being driven to madness by the depth of his fear. Or the innumerable other Wardens, nameless and unknown to me, hacked to pieces and rotting in the mud at Ostagar.

I peered at the woman, wondering what she actually wanted to ask me. I didn't have to wait for long.

"And before that?" Leliana asked. "Did you come from an alienage?"

I took in the look of pitying sympathy, the slightly parted lips and soft blue eyes, ready to coax my sad story from me… possibly so it could be woven into the tapestry of some song or tale. I wondered if she dyed her hair, and stifled a smile because the thought was so out of place.

"Yes." I nodded. "Denerim. Lower ward, by the—"

Of course, that was pointless. Humans didn't understand the distinctions. The Orlesian didn't care which end of the district I was from… she probably didn't even realise we divided the place up for our own reference. I bit the end of the word off, and just smiled awkwardly. She gave me an encouraging nod.

"Really? I have often been to Denerim, but never to the alienage. Was it very terrible? I hear life is very hard, and there is so much squalor…."

Yes, this was familiar enough ground. Another place, another time, and she'd have been buying a bunch of bruised tulips from me for twice their market value, and smiling sweetly as she told me to keep the change. I struggled against the sneer I could feel beginning to curl my lip, but my voice still carried a cold, brittle edge.

"We get by."

"Oh, I am sure you do," Leliana said kindly.

I rather hoped she was finished but, after a thoughtful pause, that light, musical voice was chattering away again, like sunlight on water.

"You know, in Orlais, most elven servants live in the homes of their masters, often in great wealth and luxury."

It took a great deal of effort to keep my feet moving forwards, and the soles of my boots scuffed at the stones. In a way, I was almost glad of the lingering pain of the blisters; something to focus on amid the swirling urges to either hit the woman or be extremely rude.

"I… did not know that."

_And in Ferelden we are free. We may not have much, but it is ours, and that is worth more than any extravagance you could speak of. _

I left the litany of irritation to rumble within me, and tried to make my face diplomatically blank, the way I'd seen Duncan do.

"Oh, it is true! In fact, I have known elven servants with servants of their own."

She said it as if it was something remarkable, like a dog walking on its hind legs. I bit my tongue, unable to imagine few things worse. The sun was a wet jewel in a watery, grey sky, gilding the top of the Highway's ruined arches, tracing the silver lines of spider webs, and picking out the ancient veins of white in the stone.

"Goodness," I murmured. "You don't say."

"Indeed. Of course, a well-trained elven servant is a highly valued in Orlais. They are nimble and dextrous… and many people find them pleasing to look at."

Alistair cleared his throat noisily, but I was already loosing an acerbic barb.

"Like a prize-winning animal?"

Leliana blinked and looked confused. "Wh— no, I did not mean it that way!"

I wondered just what other way there was to mean such words—_animals… used as they were meant to be used_—but I didn't say anything. She, however, genuinely seemed apologetic.

"My words were clumsily chosen. I did not mean to offend. I… I am sorry."

Perhaps she was, I thought, looking warily at the bright, pale eyes, suddenly cloudy, like cheap glass. I shrugged.

"It's all right. No offence taken," I lied. "But I doubt I shall go running off to pledge myself to service any time soon."

Leliana smiled timidly. "No, I don't expect so. Although you have given me a lot to think about."

She was certainly quieter for a while, anyway. We kept up our pace, weary feet chewing away at mile after mile, and the road stayed weirdly empty. There were a few scatterings of refugees; not the great outpourings that had flooded Lothering, but handfuls of grimly determined people. They were starting the long, hard slog north to Denerim, their carts methodically crammed with every possession, and children perched on the top of the piles like rag dolls, staring wide-eyed as the countryside rolled by around them.

They looked warily at us, and I supposed we did present a strange and threatening sight. A pack of mercenaries, maybe, or bandits taking advantage of the chaos that threatened the south. At any rate, we overtook them—they seemed to slow down enough to ensure it, with one man stopping his horse and claiming the cart was unbalanced, though I could see his wife didn't believe him—and we trudged on.

Morrigan and Alistair were scratching half-heartedly at each other again. She, claiming her interest had been piqued by the noticeable presence of templars in Lothering, started tossing jibes about failed religious instruction, and I saw Leliana perk up at the mention of something with which she was evidently familiar.

"I didn't _fail_ at it," Alistair protested. "I was recruited into the Grey Wardens. There's a difference."

"Oh, of course," Morrigan said airily. "Indeed. Most who choose to abandon their vocations, after all, do so of their own free will. 'Twould only stand to reason _you _should need to be led by the hand."

He winced. "That… that is so not how it happened."

"Really?" She looked smug, evidently pleased at having been able to rile him and drag what was, admittedly, not quite a secret out into the open, all in one breath.

"You were a templar, Alistair?" Leliana asked.

The sun was reaching its full height, which was the only way I had of guessing how long we'd been walking. My blistered feet had settled into a dull, steady throb, punctuated by bursts of sharp pain, though the ointment seemed to have improved things a bit.

Alistair was summarising his story for the Orlesian, and I listened with half an ear, an awareness flickering into life of a question I'd left unasked. Latent bits of memory surfaced, and brought with them specks of curiosity, dancing in the sunlight like dust motes.

_No, I know him. Eamon wouldn't dismiss us out of hand._

"I was… given to the Chantry when I was young," Alistair said vaguely. "I trained for it, but the Grey Wardens recruited me before I took my final vows."

"How exciting!" Leliana gave him one of those encouraging, do-go-on smiles. "And how brave to have given up so much to join them."

"Er… I didn't mind, really. I didn't actually want to—"

"And do you miss it? Do you regret leaving the Chantry?"

"Nope," he said, before the words were even fully past her lips. "No, never."

Leliana's brow furrowed delicately. "You don't? Oh. I was glad of the peace I found in the cloister. The kind of peace I've never known."

He chuckled. "Sometimes, it used to get so quiet at the monastery that I would start screaming until one of the brothers came running… and I'd tell them I was just checking. You never know, right?"

I smiled to myself, watching him grin at the memory, and try to pull Leliana into the game. She looked nonplussed, and shook her head.

"No, I never did anything like that. I enjoyed the quiet."

"Suit yourself." Alistair shrugged. "The look on their faces was always priceless."

Morrigan snorted. "And just think… but for the grace of one man, you could have had a lifetime of it to look forward to. Tell me, what would have happened had you had not been recruited, hm?"

If her reference to Duncan was calculated to disarm, Alistair rallied well. He smiled tightly.

"Well, let's see… I would have turned into a drooling lunatic, slaughtered the grand cleric and run through the streets of Denerim in my smallclothes, I guess."

I laughed, mostly at him, and partly at Leliana's expression of open-mouthed shock. I think even Morrigan birthed a smile.

"Your self-awareness does you credit," she said dryly.

"I do my best."

At least it made a change from flat-out bickering.

I looked over my shoulder at Sten, still pacing silently at the back of the group, staring fixedly into the distance. In a strange way, I suppose I felt a degree of kinship with him. We were both outsiders, in different ways, though I had yet to forgive him for the 'excel at poverty' crack.

"It will rain later," he observed, which made me jump, because it felt as if he was responding to something I hadn't even said.

I glanced up at the sky. It was still bright enough, but I could see the clouds he meant, banked ahead of us in fluffy rows of streaked grey and yellow. The Highway's ceaseless stone reflected the sunlight and made it seem warmer than it should for the time of year, I supposed, and a light breeze ruffled the trees, dislodging leaves along the way. They bowled along the road with dry, skittering noises, harbingers of a winter that would soon be here.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Sten was right about the rain. It started in the early afternoon, and it was as if someone had stuck a knife in the belly of the heavens. We were soaked within minutes, and where the Highway's cracked arches and straight, constant lines had been a trap for the warmth of the sun, they now seemed to funnel the rain straight into every nook, crevice and chink in my clothing.

"Anyone else's boots leaking?" Alistair asked, breaking the heavy, damp silence as we trudged on.

There was a chorus of muttered, slightly squelchy, assent. Leliana sneezed, in a very dainty and ladylike manner. I didn't realise it at the time, still being so fixed on the idea that Redcliffe would be the end of our journey, but those wet, monotonous hours, and many others like them, would come to characterise so much of what lay ahead. For all the fighting, the battle and the bloodshed—and all the stories that would sound so much more dramatic than they really were, when told again in a dry, warm tavern—everything was built on this. The slow, tedious grind of placing foot after foot, long after the body grows weary and the soul drifts into mindless torpor… there isn't much that is heroic about it.

I have often thought that, when bards tell stories of great adventures and those they would call heroes, they skip a great deal of the meat of the matter; the wet socks and the stony ground, the dearth of clean smallclothes and hot water.

By the time the light began to fail and we stopped to make camp, everyone was soaked and tempers were short. Morrigan had turned her attention from baiting Alistair to picking half-hearted fights with Leliana about the nature of organised religion. 'Primitive fear of the moon', she called it, and the Maker an imaginary absent father-figure whose image the gullible clung to in order to spare themselves from the irrepressible, primal power of Nature.

Leliana seemed to indulge the spikes and barbs with what I saw as a certain self-righteousness. Her faith was evident; unshakeable, it seemed, and that I found unsettling.

Back home, we'd never really been a religious household, and certainly less so after Mother died. Father always held that people had to make their own sense of things, rather than relying on the Maker's ineffable plans, or on the blanket of faith to shield them. Of course, the Chantry never seemed to go out of its way for the alienage, either. A few of the sisters used to come in and preach, and there was a vague and intermittent effort at outreach for the poor and needy, the same as in other deprived parts of the city, but we were not… included, as such. All Valendrian's attempts to foster a sense of gratitude in us, an ethic of tolerance and understanding, fell rather flat when we'd gather, politely, to hear these well-scrubbed, neatly coiffed human women stand beneath the vhenadahl and speak of mercy and forgiveness.

They were foreign to us, though they meant well, and their stories were not our stories. Their belief, when it came dressed in good silk and smelling of rosewater, was not our belief. That was what intrigued me about Leliana, I supposed.

She dressed like them, maybe even looked like them, but there was something different about her… and not just the huge, clunking shadow of a past that trailed behind her like a banner. I took the opportunity to ask her about it when—with a rather puny little fire smouldering in the damp evening air—we were trying to make a meal out of some dried peas, salt meat, and most of a rabbit that Maethor had proudly deposited at my feet.

"You're… not really going to put that in there, are you?"

She looked at me in alarm as I cracked the backbone, nicked the back paws with my dagger, and set to skinning the thing. I shrugged.

"Part of it. S'good meat, and it hasn't been that badly chewed."

Maethor, settled happily at my feet, gave a small whine. I nudged him with my toe.

"Pig," I said affectionately. "You've eaten enough."

He had indeed turned out to be a fine hunter of small, inoffensive squeaky things, and seemed to spend most of his day putting up rats, mice, voles, and anything else he found along the road. In the short time he'd been with us, I'd already grown very fond of the hound. There was something incredibly comforting about a broad, warm, powerful beast who never seemed to doubt me, rarely left my side… and took every opportunity to usurp my bedroll when he thought he could get away with it.

Leliana looked queasy when I got to the gutting—the dog had only had the head, after all—and I chanced my question.

"It seems odd, I must say, for someone like you to have been cloistered in Lothering."

"Oh?" She dropped a handful of jack-by-the-hedge into the stewpot. "And what is meant by 'someone like me'?"

I slipped two fingers into the rabbit's cavity and twisted out the innards, taking care not to break the gut, and tossed the mess to Maethor, who slurped it down with a truly disgusting noise.

"You… just don't seem to belong in a cloister," I said carefully. "You said you'd had a more, er, colourful life, and then there's your skill with a blade, so I—"

"The Chantry does not pry, and you should?" That porcelain face grew a little stiffer, and I suspected it wasn't just the blood on my hands that Leliana was avoiding looking at. "I desired time apart from the world, that is all."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. Just curious," I said, starting to cut the carcass into smaller pieces. The flesh was wet and slippery, and my dagger wasn't really made for the job. "You are from Orlais, though?"

"My mother was Fereldan but, yes, I spent a great deal of time in Orlais. I was a travelling minstrel there." She sighed, her eyes taking on a mist of memory and, perhaps, happier times. "Tales and songs were my life. I performed, and they rewarded me with applause and coin."

"You do have a very beautiful voice," I prompted.

Leliana smiled. "You think so? Thank you! I do love to sing. It lifts my spirits like nothing else. There's nothing better than a good song to brighten the day, no?"

"Can't carry a tune in a bucket, me," I said cheerfully, dumping the bits of rabbit into the pot, where they sank beneath the ominous surface of our rather watery concoction. "I like to listen, though. Do you know _On Hills of Green Heather_?"

"Oh, yes!" She nodded fervently. "Now, if we could just find a lute…."

"And maybe you'd tell me something about this vision of yours, too."

She blinked, and gave me an admonishing look, though it was tinged with the hint of a smile; recognition of a game well-played, rather than the reproach of one who has been truly offended.

"Hmm. And now you are trying to trick me, no?"

"No." I shook my head. "But I am curious. You said the Maker… _told_ you to—?"

She sighed. The pot was beginning to bubble.

"I don't know how to explain it," Leliana said eventually, lowering her voice a little. "In my dream, there was an impenetrable darkness. It was so dense, so real. And there was a noise, a terrible, ungodly noise…."

I stiffened, mid-way through wiping my hands on my breeches.

"Er. Yes?"

"Mm." She nodded, and stirred the weak soup with the ladle. "I stood on a peak and watched as the darkness consumed everything… and when the storm swallowed the last of the sun's light, I… I fell, and the darkness drew me in."

"You dreamed of the Blight," I said hollowly. She took it as a question—as if dreams and I were unfamiliar acquaintances.

"I suppose I did. That's what the darkness was, no? Anyway, when I woke, I went to the chantry's gardens, as I always do. But that day, the rosebush in the corner had flowered." A small, sad smile touched her lips. "Everyone _knew_ that bush was dead. It was grey and twisted and gnarled—the ugliest thing you ever saw, but there it was—a single, beautiful rose. It was as though the Maker stretched out His hand to say 'Even in the midst of this darkness, there is hope and beauty. Have faith'."

Or it was the final effort of a dying plant, making one last push to thrust its seed into the world. I didn't say so; signs and omens are found everywhere by those who wish to seek them.

"Doesn't the Chantry say the Maker has left us?"

Leliana shook her head and tapped the ladle on the side of the pot. It wasn't an impassioned rebuttal, just a cool, clear refusal.

"No. He is still here; I hear Him in the wind and the waves, I feel Him in the sunlight that warms my skin."

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the faint _glurp_ of the soup. A bit of rabbit crested the surface, grey-sheened and nearly cooked, by the look of it.

"Um. Right."

I could see why she had been in the process of leaving Lothering. I didn't understand enough about the politics and bureaucracies of the Chantry to know whether views like hers were heresy or not, but I imagined they didn't sit well with the hierarchy. If the crux of the Chant of Light was, as I'd always been taught, contrition, the whole point of it to turn the Maker's mercy back to the world he had forsaken, then Leliana's words were complacent arrogance. And yet—perhaps especially now, when everything seemed so inescapably bleak, and there had been so much death and loss—I wanted to believe what she said. I wanted, very much, to see the signs of benediction in the world around me… but I didn't know where to start looking.

Leliana's lips twitched dismissively. "I know what the Chantry says about the Maker, but what should I believe, hmm? What I feel in my heart, or what others tell me?"

She arched her pale brows, and gave me a look of surprising hardness. I tripped over my tongue, and stammered out the least insulting platitude I could manage.

"Well, I-I don't…. You have to trust yourself, I suppose."

_I_ could believe that, at least. Leliana smiled at me, and I got the feeling that, rather than answering her question, I had simply betrayed more of myself than I cared to.

"Thank you," she said sweetly. "It's nice to find someone who agrees. You see, I know what I know, and no one will ever make that untrue."

I nodded, and wondered how long it would take us to get to Redcliffe in the morning. For all that would probably await us, I was looking forward to being somewhere safe and dry, and among lots of other people, where everything might stop feeling as if it was pressing in so much, devolving upon me when I was in no position to bear the weight.

_**~o~O~o~**_

After supper (which really wasn't that bad, all things considered) I decided to seek Alistair out, with a view to getting a couple of questions answered. I might not be ready to present the case we'd have to put forward in Redcliffe—and who would, claiming treachery against the hero of River Dane, of all people?—but at least I could try to be forewarned.

He'd settled, cross-legged by the fire, and was cleaning his way through the company's pooled stack of armour and weapons, chiselling the day's worth of mud off and trying to work up a shine on the dull steel and cracked leather. Sensible to try and make a good impression when we arrived, I supposed… as far as we could. However, none of it had been particularly good gear to start with, and what little we had did not stretch so far as to outfit Sten, who was still clad in his ragged shirt and breeches. Not that anything made for humans _would_ fit him, of course.

Alistair glanced up at me and smiled genially.

"Don't suppose you've come to lend a hand?"

"Sure. Spare cloth?"

He tossed me a rag streaked with foul-smelling polish, and pointed to the collection of earthenware pots on the ground before him.

"That one's for scouring, that one's for greasing, and that one—"

"Is for leather," I finished for him. "I might be a new recruit, but I _have _cleaned things before."

He grinned. I hunkered down on the ground to his right, hauling a sword too big for me to wield into my lap.

There were no two ways about it: however presentable we tried to get this stuff, we were still going to roll up at the castle with a wild-eyed barbarian sorceress, a foreigner in a Chantry robe, and a qunari whose tattered strips of clothing really didn't do anything to make him look less threatening.

And just who were 'we', anyway? I ran my cloth down the blade's length, working with the fine, folded grain of the metal, watching the firelight flicker on the imprint of every beaten sheet of steel, forged deep within its surface. There had been so many new things to think about recently, so many assaults on the opinions and beliefs I'd grown up with—too deeply ingrained to even be called preconceptions—that I wasn't even sure who _I _was some of the time. Too much of everything that had defined me had been left behind, first in the alienage and then at Ostagar, and now, like a crab stripped of its shell, I felt naked and vulnerable.

The smell of the polish scratched at the back of my throat, and I sniffed. "So… can I ask you a question?"

"Ask away," Alistair said amiably.

I almost regretted bringing the matter up, but I wasn't about to back down.

"How did you come to know Arl Eamon?" I asked tentatively. "When you speak of him, you… well, you sound as if you _know _him. Yet you said you'd spent your life in the Chantry before you were recruited."

"Ah." Alistair's cloth worked briskly over the shoulder piece of his armour. "Well, now, that's what you get for listening to me, you see. You really shouldn't—"

"I thought you were gentry or something, when I first met you," I said shortly, not really in the mood for playing games. He loosed a sharp, bitter laugh, but I carried on, undeterred. "No, I did. Some rich merchant's son, shunted off into the army… you're not, though, are you?"

I glanced at him, and watched him wad up the polishing cloth in his hand, the smile gradually slipping from his face. He shook his head.

"No."

"So? What, then?"

Alistair sighed. The fire cast tanned shadows across his face, and cruelly picked out in thin highlights of flame the suggestions of secrets I guessed he would rather have kept.

"Let's see…. All right. How do I explain this? I'm a bastard," he said curtly, shooting me a sly look, eyes narrowed. "And before you make any smart comments, I mean the fatherless kind."

A smile tugged at my mouth. "I… see."

I wouldn't have passed judgement—or stooped so low as the obvious pun—but it did no harm to play along. In any case, my mind was buzzing ahead of me, jumping to conclusions.

He fell back to buffing the armour he held, focusing intently on raising a dull sheen on the hardened leather. I recognised the comfort drawn from a routine, mundane job, and the pent-up frustration taken out on an inanimate thing. His words were stilted, awkward… I assumed he was embarrassed.

"My mother was a serving girl in Redcliffe Castle. She died when I was very young. Arl Eamon took me in, put a roof over my head."

"That was… kind of him."

Alistair glanced up sharply. "He wasn't my father. And he didn't have to do it. But he was good to me, all the same. I respect the man and I… I don't blame him any more for sending me off to the Chantry once I was old enough."

I nodded slowly, pieces falling into place, and the unspoken parts of the story unfolding their own truths. The smell of the polish crackled in the back of my throat, and I worked the grease up and down the blade I held, the sound of the cloth a soft, rhythmic breach in the quiet.

Unplanned, abandoned, then cast away: a hard life, by the sound of it. Perhaps not as hard as some, but still…. I frowned.

"He gave you to the Chantry?"

"Mm. He… he didn't owe me anything. I mean, there was no reason—"

"That must have hurt."

Alistair's cloth stilled on the armour, and he exhaled tightly.

"I was young and resentful and not very pious. I didn't want to go. I remember screaming at him like a little child… well, I _was_ a child, so I doubt he was surprised."

A sour grimace curled his lip as he stared into whatever distant memory was playing out before him.

"I expect he understood," I said gently.

Alistair blinked, glanced at me and looked… grateful, that was the word. It surprised me. I hadn't often seen behind the defences he so carefully constructed around himself—not counting those first few days after Ostagar, of course. Not that we spoke of those.

I decided to push my luck a little further.

"So, why did the arl send you away? The education?"

He shook his head ruefully, frowning at the armour again and, when he spoke, the words started slowly, then flooded out, measured but unstoppable, like a rising tide.

"Arl Eamon married a young woman from Orlais… which caused all sorts of problems between him and the king, because it was so soon after the war. But he really loved her. Anyhow, the new arlessa resented the rumours that pegged me as his bastard. They weren't true, though of course they existed. The arl didn't care, but she did. So, off I was packed to the nearest monastery at age ten."

I knew I ought to say something, but I wasn't sure what, hampered by the feeling Alistair had probably been lucky, given the circumstances of his birth. Granted, I knew there were differences between the way elves and humans dealt with the realities of service, but all the girls _I _knew of who'd found themselves in trouble had been summarily dismissed then, in most cases, disowned by their families. No ten years under the roof of an arl for those babies… but I reined the thoughts in, guilty at how easy it was for me to judge. No one can really know anything beyond their own experience and, in any case, what should I tell him? That it could have been worse?

He shrugged, refolding his cloth and swiping it through the polish again, working a glob of the stuff into the armour until the hide gleamed dully.

"It was just as well, I suppose," he said flatly. "The arlessa had made sure the castle wasn't a home to me by that point."

Which meant it must have been before, I supposed, and I frowned. That was cruel.

I watched him pretend to focus on his buffing, as if his life depended on a shiny breastplate, and it was all too easy to see a small boy sitting there, all knees and elbows and untidy hair. Alone, and convinced that he was unloved.

"That's a terrible thing to do to a child," I said, without really meaning for the words to slip out.

"Hm. Maybe." Alistair didn't look up. "She felt threatened by my presence, I can see that now. I… I can't say I blame her, anyhow. She wondered if the rumours were true herself, I bet."

I wanted to say that wasn't the point, that no one should take out their insecurities on a child… but it probably wouldn't have helped.

Back in the alienage, family wasn't just important; it was everything. We regarded children as blessings, and we loaded them down with unconditional love and hope. As babies, they were coddled and adored. Once they were older, they ran riot in the streets, caked in mud and chaos, their growth wild and joyful before the cares and the restrictions of life there impinged.

Casting a child off the way Alistair described was inconceivable to me. A boy of that age needed life, and colour—and a good larruping when he misbehaved—but most of all, to know that he belonged. I couldn't imagine what it must have been like, to have no family of his own, and then for what he did have to be so unkindly stripped from him.

"I remember…." He cleared his throat, as if almost reconsidering what he was going to say. "I, uh, I had an amulet with Andraste's holy symbol on it. The only thing I had of my mother's. I was so furious at being sent away I tore it off and threw it at the wall and it shattered. Stupid, stupid thing to do."

I lifted one shoulder in a small, ameliorating shrug. "You were young."

Alistair snorted. "It was no excuse for the way I acted. But maybe all young bastards act like that, I don't know."

"Maybe. Did… did you see the arl again after you left?" I asked cautiously.

I didn't want to pry more than I ought, but I was starting to worry about the reception we might receive in Redcliffe… not to mention a lingering suspicion about Arl Eamon's altruism. Admittedly, my experience of the nobility was limited—and pretty damn negative—but I still doubted most of them made a habit of boarding their servants' illegitimate whelps.

"Yes." Alistair nodded. "He came by the monastery a few times to see how I was, but I was stubborn. I hated it there and I blamed him for everything. Eventually, he just… stopped coming."

"And you stayed there, then?" I prompted, keen not to let him dwell on his regrets. "Until Duncan recruited you?"

"Not in the same monastery, no." He tossed the rag down, finally relinquishing the armour, which was now thoroughly drenched with polish. "Once it was suggested I begin the templar training, they moved me to Denerim. Not that _that _was much better. The initiates from the poor families thought I put on airs, while the noble ones called me a bastard and ignored me." A self-deprecating smile dented his cheek, and he shook his head. "I was still determined to be bitter, but I took some solace in the training itself, I guess. I was actually quite good at it."

"Mm." I glanced down the length of the sword I still held, which had been clean enough for some time. "I've seen you fight."

"Ooh!" He smirked, which I took to mean either an improvement in his mood, or the walls going back up. "Was that a compliment?"

I smiled. "Near enough."

He chuckled. "Well, some good came out of it. I enjoyed the education, and the discipline, I suppose. It was good for me… especially as I wasn't exactly, er, the religious type. I was banished to the kitchens to scour the pots more times than I can count. And that's a lot; I can count pretty high."

I lofted an eyebrow. "What, even without taking your socks off?"

"Very funny." The withering look Alistair tried to give me didn't hide the splutter of laughter, and he reached for his sword belt, working the cloth into the crevices of the leather. "Anyhow, I was lucky, I guess. When Duncan came looking for recruits, I just remember praying fervently to the Maker that he would pick me… and he did. I was so grateful. I thought I'd never… well, you know. The grand cleric didn't want to let me go, that was for sure. She was furious when Duncan conscripted me—I thought she'd have us both arrested. It wasn't even as if I was worth that much to the Chantry. She just couldn't bear the thought of giving anything to the Grey Wardens, I think."

The deluge of words stopped as suddenly as it had started, and I glanced at Alistair, mildly curious. Mentioning Duncan had brought that tight, drawn look back into his face, but he was fighting it.

"I kept up with the training because Duncan thought it would be useful against the kind of magic the darkspawn use," he said, working his way around the sword belt, buffing the polish into every loop and edge. "But I can't say I miss anything about the Chantry… except maybe the uniform."

He shot me a wry look, but I was confused. My cloth paused on the next in the pile of blades I'd been greasing, and I frowned.

"Er… don't templars mainly wear heavy plate?"

"Oh, that's just in public." Alistair grinned. "In private we have these yellow and purple tunics, right? Much more comfortable, and you don't break the beds when you jump on them during a pillow fight."

I snorted, happy to admit that he'd got me that time—and happy to see he was more or less himself, as far as I could judge what normal was for him. It didn't cross my mind that he was trying to distract me. Ironic as it was, I thought him too honest for that.

"Pillow fights?"

"Yep." The grin widened. "On Confession Day we could go all night."

I guffawed; a real, proper laugh, like I wasn't used to doing outside of home, with Soris' friends sharing some dirty joke or bawdy song. Across from the fire, I saw Leliana peer curiously at us, and I tried to get a hold of my giggles.

"Somehow," I managed, "I'm not surprised."

"No?" Alistair smirked. "Well, being a templar isn't all about chasing men in skirts and hiding behind priests, you know."

"Hmm." I set down the last of the weapons, newly cleaned and greased, and reached for the nearest pair of boots, and the leather polish. "You'll have to tell me all about it."

He wrinkled his nose. "Oh, you don't really want to know…. Aside from the pillow fights and the exquisite tailoring, it's pretty boring."

"So?" I shrugged, the ends of laughter still prickling at the corners of my mouth. "Just make up something more exciting."

It was his turn to laugh then, unstaged and unaffected, and it reminded me how unlike most humans of my experience Alistair was. I buffed the uppers of the boots I was working on, and tried to pretend there wasn't a flicker of anger somewhere in the darkest heart of me. It wasn't precisely humiliation; more like a sharp sting of annoyance at how readily I reached out for this… this camaraderie, which felt like friendship, and yet carried the bitter core of treachery about it.

_He's still a shem_, I'd catch myself thinking. And what did that make me? No better than every human who looked my way and saw nothing but a thin-boned knife-ear with skinny legs and a big nose.

Alistair elbowed me in the ribs, and nearly sent both boots and rag flying from my fingers.

"Ha! You know, I like the way you think."

I smiled uneasily. Stupid thoughts. The Blight would hardly hold back to make distinctions over race or class. Besides, it wasn't even as if I was truly elven anymore, was it? Only to _them_. To my own kind, I was half-lost already. Adrift, and abandoned.

I glanced at Alistair, still buffing away on the stack of harness. The job was almost done now; it had gone by quickly with the two of us working.

"Um. Thanks, though." I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Er. For telling me about the arl, and… y'know."

"Oh." His cloth paused, his brow furrowed, and then he nodded, not looking up at me. "Right. Yes, well… that's really all there is to the story."

"So you never knew who your father was, then?"

It was blunt, and clumsy, and ordinarily I would never have asked, but the words just blurted themselves out. Alistair blinked. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and I suspected I'd touched a nerve. Perhaps he was ashamed… or just annoyed.

"I mean, if it wasn't the arl…." I scrabbled, digging the hole I'd landed myself in even deeper.

He shook his head, and I shut up.

"I know who I was _told_ was my father," Alistair said carefully, wiping the polish off his hands. "He… he's dead now, anyhow. It isn't important."

And I accepted that. I nodded glumly, toyed with the idea of apologising but didn't quite have the guts to admit weakness by actually doing it, and we finished up the cleaning more or less in silence, just watching the flames dance.

My thoughts wandered to home and family, to the prejudices and questions that still clung to me, and to the lingering, remorseful wish that things could have been different. Of course, everyone wished that, I supposed, in one way or another.

Everyone nursed dreams, held tight to their chests in the stillness. Sometimes, they withered there, clasped too firm and choked off with wanting. Sometimes, they were let free to fly, and were ripped to shreds by cruel gales, or—like mine, perhaps—snatched away in an instant by a sudden, malicious breath of wind.

Perhaps, I thought, it wasn't the expectations that were important. A way of thinking could change, in time… and what mattered more than that was the actions a person took.

After all, life was to be lived, not dreamed.


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's note: Continued thanks to all those lovely people reading, reviewing, favouriting etc.! Apologies for going AWOL; have had all the fun of floods, snow, power outages, family mess, and actual real-life work (eek) to deal with over the past four weeks. Holing up over Christmas with the laptop and a blanket over my head has never looked better…. In the meantime - the arrival at Redcliffe. Enjoy :) ~ana

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**CHAPTER SIX**

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The journey put us all in a ruminative mood, I supposed. When dawn broke, we were already walking again, but things felt easier… more intimate, almost. We'd shared food, made camp together and, although the past two nights hadn't exactly been full of cosiness and comfort, everyone was still upright and breathing. More than that, we were leaving the Imperial Highway behind us, and heading west towards the mountains, Redcliffe, and the hope of salvation.

It was a pleasant change to be off the grim stone monotony of the Highway, despite the fact the road here wasn't as even or well-maintained. Most parts of it were still essentially paved, and good enough for the few trade carts and refugee wagons we saw. At first, no one noticed they were all heading north-east. We were thinking about what lay ahead, no doubt, and perhaps basking a little in the tranquillity of a dry, bright morning, as the sun bleached the last traces of rain and discomfort from the trees and wooded fields around us.

"And so, pray tell, Alistair…." Morrigan's voice cut through the peaceful background sounds of birdsong, the faint jingle of armour and weaponry, and boots beating mismatched paces against the ground. "Precisely what welcome should we expect from this castle of yours?"

"What?"

He blinked, and looked guiltily at her, as if his mind had been somewhere completely different. It probably had. Alistair had been suspiciously quiet all morning, and I thought I knew why. I didn't know if he regretted telling me what he had last night—about his mother, Arl Eamon's curious generosity, and the loneliness of the Chantry—but coming back still had to be hard.

"It's not _my_— I mean, I… I haven't been in Redcliffe in years. It isn't—"

He glanced at me, and I shook my head. I hadn't said anything. It didn't bother me that he seemed to think I might have. Not really.

"Oh." Morrigan's dark-painted lips twitched into that familiar smirk of triumph, like a cat who's just pinioned something under one paw. "Then what, one might ask, do you base your assumption of a welcome upon? Are we to sweep in, expecting to be congratulated for bearing ill tidings?"

I wondered, idly, how she kept that warpaint of hers looking so immaculate. Did she have pots and potions secreted away in her pack, and did she spend precious minutes in the dark before dawn, fiddling with powder, paint, and hair-pins, while the rest of us were damping down the fire and shaking out our blankets? Or was it all witchcraft and glamoury? It could be, I reasoned. If she really was a shapeshifter, like the legends of the Witches of the Wilds said, who was to say _what_ her true form was?

"If you're worried, Morrigan," I said conversationally, "you can always stay outside the village. I know you're not, er, _used _to being so far from home."

She whipped around like a snake, glared hotly at me, and Alistair managed to have a sudden coughing fit. I shrugged, not even trying to outstare those eerie, ochre-gold eyes, and glanced up at the sky. It was a clear blue, fringed by the rustling tops of trees and streaked with dirty-white tails of cloud, but promising a fine day, nonetheless.

"I am not 'worried'," she said, voice oozing with scorn. "I have no fear of the world of men. You know this. I simply question—"

"Look," Alistair said wearily. "All we can do is give Arl Eamon a full account of what happened at Ostagar. I can't believe the Bannorn would unite behind Loghain that easily, but if that's the case—and if he really _has _named himself regent—then we'll definitely need Eamon's help to convince them of the danger the Blight poses. I imagine he'll call a Landsmeet, and—"

"Wonderful." Morrigan scoffed. "Politics. Maybe your nobles will consent to talk the darkspawn to death, and save everyone the trouble of fighting."

He didn't argue, I noticed. He just shook his head and stared at the road, rising on before us. Nobody was mentioning the Orlesian reinforcements. I wondered about that. I still believed they would come—that they might even already be in Ferelden—and that, somehow, this whole mess would straighten itself out.

The land was beginning to change again. It was a strange thing to me, used as I was to the constants of Denerim's unalterable wood, stone, daub, and plaster. I'd never imagined the country could be full of so many contrasts. First, the flat lands of the north had become the damp, inhospitable outcrops of the Wilds, riven with the ancient stones of Ostagar and its Tevinter heritage. Then, the cold, dank forest gave way to lusher farmland, eking its existence out of the mud. Now, the ground was growing gritty and coarse, the muted colours of the holdings giving way to richer, ruddier hues. Fewer trees edged the fields, and the swells and ridges of foothills had begun to dig at the horizon.

"Redcliffe… I wonder how the name came to be," Leliana mused, breaking the rather prickly silence that had fallen. "Is the clay there red?"

Alistair nodded. "Mm. It's a fishing village, mostly. Hard, red earth, not much good for farming… or so I understand. Bakes in the summer, boggy in the winter."

"I confess," she said, "I know little of the place, except that the castle has long been considered a formidable fortress. They say the last man to breach it was your King Calenhad, the Silver Knight."

Her light, musical voice skimmed over the words, charged with the promise of the story behind them, and my mind went at once to the colourful histories Mother had given me to read as a child. The tales I'd loved best were the ones of Arlathan, and the distant make-believe of a magical, elven world, but few of those were written down. The story of Calenhad Theirin and his suit of enchanted, silver-white armour—rendering him invulnerable to blade or bow as long as he stood on Fereldan soil—was almost as good. He'd united the land for the first time, hadn't he? Funny, I supposed, how the Theirin bloodline was so closely tied to the history of Ferelden. Superstitiously so, almost.

I thought sadly of Cailan, and that first moment I'd met him at Ostagar; that glittering whirlwind in gilt-traced armour, who was young and bold and magnificent. It had been easy to believe, in that moment, that his blood—that ancient, venerable line—conveyed some gleam of legends and fables upon him, that it made him more than just a man… though I remembered chastising myself for such foolish thoughts at the time. Right before he bowed to me, and looked me in the eye, and made me feel so ridiculously, incomprehensibly invincible.

He hadn't deserved the death that came to him. Not that way. It wasn't… fair.

"Of course," Leliana was saying, still trooping valiantly on, speaking as casually as if she were just thinking aloud, "there are places in the world where the earth is a bright, strange red, and often, in the legends of such places, it is the red of blood. The blood of a thousand men slaughtered in battle, or that of an innocent unjustly slain; it stains the land that it may never be forgotten."

"Hm." Alistair wrinkled his nose. "Cheery."

"Oh, I am not suggesting it is so. Perhaps this Redcliffe has such a tale, but I do not know it."

"Huh." Morrigan grunted. "Maybe we shall find a pleasant little tavern, with charming local characters who can regale us with their many tales and anecdotes. Or, maybe we shall be busy, attempting to stem the threat of the darkspawn horde."

Leliana narrowed her eyes. "You know, Morrigan, there is much we can learn from stories. Only the very arrogant or the very foolish dismiss them out of hand."

"Indeed? And what of those who dismiss them simply because they are complete rubbish, and unimportant to anyone with half a working brain?"

Somewhere over my shoulder, I could have sworn I heard Sten sigh wearily.

_**~o~O~o~**_

The usual bickering aside, we pushed our pace hard and, not long after midday, we had Redcliffe in our sights.

The castle, the village, and the outlying holdings all fringed Lake Calenhad, and I was silently but preposterously excited at the prospect of seeing it, straining my eyes to catch the first hint of that great body of water silvering the horizon. The bulks and silhouettes of the cliffs came before that, however; the last strips of woodland and arable fields thinned out and gave way to bald, bare land, specked with mica. The air tasted different, too. Up in Denerim, if the wind was in the right direction, we sometimes scented the sea. To me, it was a fetid, dank stench—equal parts salt, sewage, and whatever mingled cargoes and filths blew up from the docks—and this was nothing like it. Not salty, but… fresh, full of water and fish, and sawdust.

We followed a packed dirt road now, the southerly approach to the village that took us over the cliff path. The track was marked with wheel ruts but peculiarly devoid of wagons. A few cottages and smallholdings stood aside from the road, shuttered up tight, but I didn't stop to wonder whether anyone was at home. I was too busy looking at the way people wove fences here, their gardens boxed in with densely knotted panels of willow, and raised beds filled to bursting with flowers, vegetables and herbs. Obviously, good earth for growing was at a premium, and gave the villagers something to compete over. Nevertheless, those well-tended patches, and the square wooden houses with shingled roofs and tight-beamed frames, were beautiful. They were familiar, in a way, to the kind of buildings I was used to—and a welcome change from all the grim Tevinter stone that seemed to characterise the south—but they were different enough to be exotic, almost.

At the top of the cliff path, we got our first glimpse of the village, spread out below us like a child's discarded toys. I could see the vaulted outline of the chantry, the main square, the forge, a cluster of stores and row upon row of houses spreading back towards the great, shimmering expanse of the lake. Gentle puffs of smoke wafted from the chimneys of the little houses, and tugged wistfully at the sky. The castle rose up behind the next cliff, a great shadow like the humped back of some fantastic creature, edged with towers and the flickering dots of pennants flapping in the breeze.

I stopped, pausing to take it all in. The others didn't seem as struck. To them, it was a nondescript little fishing village, I supposed. To Alistair, something more, perhaps, but I expected the meaning the place held for him was very different to what I saw there.

Gradually, I became aware of his presence. He was standing at my shoulder and I blinked, pulling myself from my foolish awe, and assuming he wanted to get a move on. We'd made it earlier than we'd hoped; it was mid-afternoon, and we might yet catch the arl before the castle was fully taken up with the business of the evening.

The others hadn't stopped to stare. They were heading off up the path, Leliana trying to convince Morrigan that she might care to hear the story of an Orlesian knight who'd once battled a sea monster to prove his love for a princess. She was not meeting with a great deal of approval. Sten paced silently behind them, and Maethor trotted happily along, snuffling at the ground and wagging his stumpy tail every time he caught an interesting scent.

I turned, and found Alistair slightly closer than I'd expected, lips pressed into a tight line, his face a mask of discomfort.

"I was just—" I began, but he spoke at the same time, and we fell over each other in an awkward tangle of words.

"Look, can we—" He winced, glanced up the path at the others, and then back to me, a flurry of fleeting things muddying his hazel eyes. "Sorry. Can we talk for a moment?"

I could feel a perplexed frown tightening my brow, but I didn't want to seem unsympathetic. Whatever parting memories he had of this place—or of Arl Eamon—they must have been eating away at him since we broke camp. _Something _certainly had been.

"What's on your mind?"

Alistair let out a short, stiff sigh and looked at his boots, almost as if he was having trouble meeting my eye.

"I… I need to tell you something I, ah, should probably have told you earlier."

Well, that didn't sound good. The rest of our party was still heading on without us: probably not quite out of earshot yet, but moving that way. The sun picked lazily at the rocky dirt, and the fittings on Alistair's armour gleamed dully. I caught the traces of the foul-smelling polish we'd used on everything when he moved, all mixed up with the scent of leather and human sweat.

I raised an eyebrow. "All right. I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"I don't know," he mumbled, still staring guiltily at his feet like a recalcitrant schoolboy. "I doubt it. I've never liked it, that's for sure."

Somewhere overhead, a gull circled, its harsh call echoing off the cliffs. Maethor barked at it, and made a half-hearted bounce, front paws lifting off the ground as he focused on a prey he could never possibly reach. Alistair raised his head, looked down at me miserably, and drew a deep breath.

"Right. Well, let's see… I told you how Arl Eamon raised me, right? About my mother, and—"

"Mm?"

It was meant to be gentle encouragement, but it came out sounding impatient, and left me annoyed with myself.

"Yes, well…." He cleared his throat, something that looked very much like genuine panic stalking behind his eyes. "The, er, reason he did that was b-because… well, my father… was King Maric."

My stomach pitched towards my boots, and I stared at him. He looked at me, painfully hopeful, mouth crumpled into an uncertain, apologetic crease. There was a heavy, awkward silence that seemed to spin out into a great, looping spool, thick like honey. I didn't know what to say, my head full of half-formed notions of blood and lineage and impossible, ridiculous things that were sliced through with one other, clear, singular thought, before I could even sort their different threads apart.

_I know who I was _told _was my father. He… he's dead now, anyhow. It isn't important_.

He had lied to me. I'd asked, and he'd lied.

The anger burned hotter than it should have done, and I found myself perversely pleased by the discomfort twisting his face. I sucked a slow breath in across my teeth, and nodded, scrabbling to make sense of what I'd just heard.

"Right. So… that made Cailan your, what, half-brother?"

Alistair winced again. "Not that we were close, but yes, I suppose."

He was watching me carefully, and I didn't know why my reaction should be so important. Was I supposed to fall at his feet and pledge fealty, or did he expect the kick in the shin he so richly deserved for not telling me sooner? It certainly cast a different light over everything we'd talked of before, and I disliked thinking of that time now, the glow of the firelight seeming dull and deceitful in my memory. All the same, the glimmer of a gratifying little thought pulled a thin smile to my lips.

"Then you're not just a bastard, but a _royal _bastard?"

Alistair snorted, the worried tautness in his face cracking into a sickly, relieved smile. "Ha! Yes, I guess it does, at that. Maybe I should use that line more often."

His grin faded, replaced by a look of uncomfortable apology. I suspect I was a touch tight-lipped and stern, arms folded across my chest and head tipped expectantly to the side. I still couldn't believe it. Not that I was any kind of a superstitious royalist, but… _him_? Carrying four centuries of regal blood in his veins?

"I…." Alistair sighed. "I should have told you. I would have, but… it never meant anything to me."

I didn't believe that for a minute, and I couldn't contain the cynical rise of my brows. He looked chastened.

"Well, it didn't _matter_. I was inconvenient, a possible embarrassment; that was all. They kept me secret, and then the arl shipped me off to the Chantry, and I— well, I've never talked about it to anyone."

He let out a long, weary breath, and I found myself annoyed at my own self-absorption. Bolt from the blue or not, this revelation was _his_. It wasn't about me, and what he had or hadn't told me… and, stung though I was, I could see how twisted up he was by the telling. I bit the inside of my lip. Probably twisted up by a damn sight more than that, too. At least it explained Arl Eamon's willingness to raise a maid's bastard brat.

"Were you… told not to tell?" I asked gently. "Or was it your—"

"I knew I wasn't supposed to, right from the start. No doubt about that. Not that I ever _wanted _to tell anyone. Everyone who knew either resented me for it or they coddled me," he blurted. "Even Duncan kept me out of the fighting because of it."

His words hit me like a sock full of wet sand. Was that true? I'd believed Duncan had kept us both back from the front line because we were green—or because _I _was, more likely. It had been Alistair's misfortune, I'd thought, to be stuck babysitting me, and I'd been amazed he didn't seem to resent me for it. I wondered if he based his notion on anything more than grief-riddled guilt… and, slowly, I started to have some idea of what he meant.

I knew what it was to have every aspect of your life defined by what you were, albeit in a very different way. His blood didn't shout itself the way my ears did; he could hide his otherness, but I wasn't jealous of that. What marked _me _out also gave me a sense of belonging, while his did the very opposite.

"It's just…." Alistair scuffed his boot at the ground, brow furrowed. "Everyone ends up treating me differently," he mumbled. "So I… I didn't want you to know for as long as possible. Stupid, I s'pose. I'm sorry."

As apologies went, it was graceless, but heart-felt. I cast a look up the path, where the rest of our motley little band had hauled in and were waiting for us. Morrigan looked annoyed and kept tapping her foot. Maker only knew what they thought we were talking about… unless Leliana could lip-read, I supposed. She was peering curiously at us, and ventured to give me a cheerful little wave. I nodded, as if to assure her we wouldn't be a minute. Maethor was sitting at Sten's feet and having a damn good scratch. What it must be, I thought, to have nothing more pressing in life to concern you than fleas.

Alistair still looked uncomfortable. He watched me nervously now, as if he wanted—needed, perhaps—my assurance, or forgiveness, or… something. I didn't know what. I wanted to stay angry with him, to keep the irritation and the ire wadded up and fresh, right at my fingertips, but I had to admit I knew what it was like to have a secret… to be afraid of what people would think if they knew the truth.

We all had our own pasts.

"It's all right." I exhaled slowly. "I think I understand."

Relief broke over his face like sunlight, and he grinned broadly.

"You do? Oh, good. I'm glad. It's not like I got special treatment for it, anyhow."

I quietly wondered at that, but declined to comment.

"Anyway, that's it," Alistair said briskly. "That's what I had to tell you. Just thought you ought to know."

Hiding behind that cheerful, flippant veneer again. Like everything was back to normal. The irritation resurfaced, a dark wave of it slipping through me. I clenched my jaw.

"And that's it? You're sure you're not hiding anything else?"

He smirked. "Besides my unholy love of fine cheese and a minor obsession with my hair, no. That's it. Just the prince thing."

Oh, I'd get him for that one.

"So… I should be calling you Prince Alistair?" I asked innocently.

It wiped the grin off his face, at any rate. He actually paled a little bit.

"No! Maker's breath, just hearing that gives me a heart attack! It's not true, anyhow… I'm the bastard son of a commoner, and a Grey Warden to boot. It was always made clear to me that the throne is _not _in my future."

I smiled, feeling very slightly as if I'd scored some kind of point. His next words knocked the mirth out of me, though, delivered with slumped shoulders and such bitter resignation.

"Anyway, there you have it. I just didn't want to walk into Redcliffe Castle and… well, have you not knowing. It would have been awkward. Now, can we move on? I'll just pretend you still think I'm… some nobody who was too lucky to die with the rest of the Grey Wardens."

I frowned. "That's not really what you think, is it?"

Alistair glanced at me, and he seemed so incredibly tired.

"No, I suppose not." His face softened a little, and he smiled weakly. "At least I have a chance to make things right. And I'm not alone."

"True. You're not."

My fingers clenched on the air. Almost without realising it, I'd half-raised my hand, ready to punch him affectionately on the arm, the way I would have done with Soris, or any of the boys back home. I smiled clumsily, and took refuge in teasing.

"Well, then," I said, clearing my throat. "At your command… my prince."

He groaned, even when I curtseyed.

"Oh, lovely. I'm going to regret this. Somehow I just know it."

We caught up with the others, and I smiled brightly, doing my best to deflect Leliana's enquiring gaze.

"_If_ we are all quite ready?" Morrigan asked archly, long, pale fingers clasped loosely on the neck of her staff.

Alistair glanced at me, and I understood. I wasn't going to relay what he'd told me for the benefit of eager observers. I nodded, and jerked my head towards the path.

"Come on, then," I said, and strode off, feet crunching on the gritty dirt.

_**~o~O~o~**_

A little way on, the ground was split in two by a great rush of raging white water, pouring down from the top of the cliff and flowing down into the village and, eventually, the lake. We could see more of Redcliffe spread out below us, including the mill, and the creak of the slowly turning wheel filtered up on the air. A stone bridge crossed the pounding river, and from its vantage point we could see right across to the lake, and even the distant silhouette of the Circle Tower, pricking the sky on its far shore.

"Seems… quiet, doesn't it?" Alistair said, peering down at the empty square.

"Very," I agreed.

Beyond the bridge, the path led up to a great wooden gate, set into the cliff and marking, I assumed, the village boundary. I expected guards, and maybe a few awkward questions, but only one lone figure was manning the post.

He was young, little more than a boy, and he wasn't even armoured. Messy red-brown hair framed his pale, pudgy face, and he shambled clumsily forwards as we approached, looking sweaty and frightened.

"Oh, thank the Maker! I… I thought I saw travellers coming down the road, though I scarcely believed it. Have you come to help us?"

That didn't sound promising. I glanced at Alistair, noting his concerned frown and the way he drew himself up, his voice taking on that authoritative edge he so seldom used.

"Help you? What do you mean?" he demanded. "Is something wrong?"

The lad's eyes widened, his pallid, rubbery lips working in obvious disbelief. "W-What, you… you don't _know_? Has nobody out there heard?"

"Heard what, man? What are you talking about?"

"The arl's sick, or… or dead, for all we know." The hapless guard's eyes widened and he shook his head, his face a skull-like picture of hopeless fear. "Nobody's heard from the castle in days, and… oh, ser, we're under attack! Monsters pour down from the fortress every night. They just keep coming, and they don't stop 'til dawn. Everyone's been fighting… and dying. We've no army to defend us, no arl, and no king to send us any help. So many are dead, and those left are terrified they're next. Please… we need help!"

"Wait," I said, trying to lever a word in between the boy's desperate pleas. "What exactly is it that's attacking you?"

Alistair glanced at me, and I supposed he must have been thinking the same thing: darkspawn would be unlikely to retreat with the dawn. The lad fixed me with his wide, terrified eyes, fogged in confusion.

"I… I don't rightly know, miss. I'm sorry. Nobody does."

He was unusually polite for a shem, especially one that reeked of fear, and I found myself wrestling the urge to pat him on the shoulder and murmur something comforting.

"I-I should take you to Bann Teagan," he said, almost hopping foot-to-foot like a desperate puppy. "He's all that's holding us together. He'll want to see you. Please…."

"Bann Teagan?" Alistair sounded surprised. "Arl Eamon's brother? He's here?"

"Yes." The lad nodded, already trying to usher us towards the gate. "Please. It's not far, if you'll come with me."

I peered briefly at my companions, and began to frame my lips around an agreement—not that the guard had actually addressed me. He was looking at Alistair, waiting for him to take charge. Not an unreasonable assumption, I supposed, given that the rest of us were either foreigners or women, and he did at least _look_ like a soldier.

"Er… right," Alistair said eventually, apparently realising that something was expected of him.

The lad looked gratefully relieved, and scampered off to open the gate. Morrigan gave a short, terse sigh of frustration, and shook her head.

"Wonderful. Did you not think we had enough to occupy our time?"

Alistair shot her a look of pure venom, but didn't say anything. I guessed from the tightness of his expression that the news of the arl's illness had knocked him sideways. True, it was a blow we could have done without. I tried not to let myself run ahead of what we already knew but, if Redcliffe had fallen, what hope did we have to marshal any kind of stand against the Blight?

"Let's just find out what's going on," I said, edging myself between them. "Or, if you'd rather wait here…."

She gave me a haughtily disparaging glare, and did not dignify me with a reply. The creak and scrape of heavy wood against the hard, red soil signalled the gate opening, and the guard waved us through. We followed him down a wide, gritty path worn into the cliff and lined with torches, and the whole village was laid out below us, empty and silent. Every house we passed was boarded up, shuttered and barred, and there was no breath of sound except for the gulls that wheeled above, shrieking harshly.

We were led to the chantry, which stood to one side of the main square, and there I did see a small group of men. They were gathered under the porch, one of them—a man with a huge, dark moustache and small, heavy-lidded eyes—was pointing down towards the lake, and seemed to be giving some kind of orders to the others. Like the guard who'd met us, each one of them looked ashen-faced and nervous, with that blank, empty way of staring at things which only comes with looking too directly, and too much, at hopeless and impossible horrors.

There were barricades all around the square, I noticed. Makeshift piles of broken tables, chairs… anything and everything that could be found, built up and packed solid at every possible choke point.

We were being watched. I could feel it. More eyes than we could see, but they were there. The whole place had a tense, hostile atmosphere, a little like the desperation and fear that had saturated Lothering, but without the sense that there was anywhere to run. The great wooden doors scraped back, and we were led into the chantry.

Back home, we'd been allowed to attend some services; Valendrian encouraged it, in fact. It was, I'd always thought, one of the ways he had of trying to instil in us an attitude of humility. We would file out across the market square—small groups of us, usually the young and the children, and a handful of elders, for the sake of propriety—and it was a treat, a departure from routine that marked Satinalia, or Harvest, or some other festival where it felt, even if just for a moment, that things were good.

The cathedral in Denerim, of course, was an enormous and impressive building, full of people and a hub of all kinds of activity. I was used to skulking in as part of one of those small groups, and sitting at the back with somebody's little one on my knee, marvelling at the high ceilings, the statues… everything, really. For me, the associations of the place had never been so much religious as architectural and aesthetic. It was the only time we ever got to see real works of art, and then there was the Chant itself, in all its echoing, complex beauty and rich harmony. I remembered that, and the way the light fell through windows made of coloured glass, like thick, dusty beams of painted sunshine.

Redcliffe's chantry was a small, pale comparison. It was wood-walled, and though higher than most of the surrounding buildings, it still wasn't huge. Nevertheless, beneath that wide, vaulted roof, dust motes danced in the shafts of tinted light, and the statues and carvings lent a familiar quality to the place… though it was far from serene.

The chantry was packed with people, but they weren't worshippers, or petitioners waiting for their claims to be dealt with. Women, children, and old folk all clustered on the floor and on any available seat. Mothers held babies close to their chests, or clutched the hands of young ones, and tried to keep them calm. There were tears, and soft, muffled sobs, and the coughs and sighs of the infirm and wounded. We didn't see much as we were led to the far end of the aisle, but the village's suffering, and the destitution of its people, was obvious enough.

Our guard brought us to a well-dressed man of middle years, talking in low tones to a woman I took for the revered mother. He was neither tall nor broad, but he looked fit, strong… and very, very tired. His beard and moustache were well-trimmed, and the same bright, reddish-brown as his hair, which he wore ear-length, with one narrow braid, the way men used to do for remembrance in the alienage. I wondered: did it have the same meaning for humans, or was it simply a matter of taste? It wasn't an important thought, and I blinked it away, uncomfortably aware that I was looking at a nobleman. The last time I'd found myself in such a position, things had ended very badly. I tried to ignore the nauseous swirl diving in my stomach, and gave myself a mental kick. No good thinking with my alienage mind, I told myself. It didn't belong to me anymore, nor I to it.

The revered mother nodded and, with a glance at us, took her leave of the bann. Our guard coughed, and drew himself up to something approaching attention.

"Er, my lord?"

The nobleman turned, meeting the boy with a genial look of enquiry. "Ah, it's… Tomas, yes? And who are these people with you? They're obviously not simple travellers."

"No, my lord." The lad shook his head. "They just arrived, and I thought you would want to see them."

The bann nodded, managing a tired smile of acknowledgement for the boy.

"Well done, Tomas."

He looked us over, and aside from a brief hardening of his eyes, presumably as he choked down his disbelief, there was very little change in his calm, faintly aloof expression. I couldn't blame him; Maker alone knew what we looked like. Maethor gave a small grumble, deep in his chest, then whined and sat down at my foot, probably in his doggy mind claiming ownership over me as much as if I were a tree or interesting rock. The nobleman's eyebrow raised a very small fraction as he glanced at the mabari, and when he smiled it seemed a little more genuine.

"Greetings, friends," he said, his wary look passing over each of us in turn. "My name is Teagan, Bann of Rainesfere, brother to the arl."

Alistair cleared his throat. "I remember you, Bann Teagan, though the last time we met I was a lot younger and, uh, covered in mud."

He smiled sheepishly, as the bann's frown of confusion gave way to a broad, delighted grin.

"Covered in mud? Wh— _Alistair_? It is you, isn't it? You're alive! Well, this is wonderful news!"

"Still alive, yes." He nodded, with a sidelong glance at me, and gave Teagan a rueful look. "Though not for long, if Teyrn Loghain has anything to say about it."

"Hm. Indeed. Loghain would have us believe all the Grey Wardens died along with my nephew… though it hasn't stopped him putting a bounty on anyone found to belong to the order. Rumours have been rife since Ostagar, but— well, it's been hard to know what's true and what is simply propaganda."

"You don't believe Loghain's lies, then?" Alistair said, his tone dark and dry.

I wished I could see the world as clearly as he did, but I said nothing. Bann Teagan curled his lip.

"What, that he pulled his men in order to save them? That Cailan risked everything in the name of glory? Hardly. Loghain calls the Grey Wardens traitors, murderers of the king. I don't believe it. It's the act of a desperate man."

It was good to know we weren't about to given up to the nearest platoon of the teyrn's men, but for a moment I thought we'd be drawn into yet another dissection of the battle, and the beacon… and everything else that still burned too close to the surface. I glanced at Alistair, and saw the pain of betrayal etched into his face. Every day, I worried it was hardening into an implacable desire for revenge.

He looked at me, and his expression shifted—almost self-conscious, as if he'd forgotten the rest of us were here.

"Um, sorry. I should…. Bann Teagan, may I introduce Merien? She's a Grey Warden too. And our, er, companions: Leliana, Morrigan… and this is, um, Sten."

There was a rather awkward shuffling of introductions. Leliana's delicate greeting was well-schooled, but my bow was clumsy and nervous, and neither Morrigan or the qunari managed more than a brusque nod. We were attracting quite a lot of attention, too; Leliana looked the least out of place in her Chantry robe, but Morrigan's raven feathers and heavy jewellery were hardly non-descript, and of course Sten towered over every human there. A gaggle of pale, wide-eyed children at the corner of the nave were staring at him in awe—not all that less obviously than their elders. I supposed we gave the destitute a passingly interesting distraction.

Still, Bann Teagan managed a graceful nod of his head, and a diplomatic smile. Obviously, I supposed, Alistair's presence with our motley band was guarantee enough for him that we weren't about to rip the place to pieces… either that, or Redcliffe was already so far gone that we couldn't have done much damage. I was inclined to think the latter, which wasn't a comforting thought.

"A pleasure to meet you all. I only wish it were under better circumstances." The bann turned to me, looked me up and down—an action I did not find comfortable—and flashed a disarming smile. "So, you are a Grey Warden as well?"

A note of curiosity and surprise lingered in his voice, which wasn't unexpected. I nodded.

"Yes."

_My lord_. The words—an honorific I knew I ought to use—trembled on my tongue, but I closed my lips tight, absurdly unwilling to say them. Nobleman or not, I wasn't going to kowtow. Not this time. Instead, I met Bann Teagan's gaze, and had the sense that I was being briefly but thoroughly assessed.

An assessment of my own filtered through my tired, muddled brain. Six months, Alistair had said he'd been a Grey Warden. The bann knew of it. Did it mean they'd kept in touch, or was Teagan simply well-informed?

Hmmph. _Younger and covered in mud_. No sooner had I begun to think more comfortably of Alistair as my comrade, than I'd caught myself starting to wonder who he really was. A dull, lingering anger at that—and at him—twisted within me, and I looked forward to the opportunity of letting it out. Not now, though. No time now. Instead, I cleared my throat, and drew myself up to my full height, which brought me about level with Bann Teagan's nose.

"We had hoped to appeal to Arl Eamon for help," I said. "But I understand there's a problem?"

"To put it lightly." Teagan nodded. "My brother fell ill just before the battle at Ostagar. His condition was grave but, in recent days, we have lost all contact with the castle. No guards patrol the walls, and no one has responded to my shouts. The attacks started a few nights ago. Evil… _things_… surged from the castle. We drove them back, but many perished during the assault."

I frowned. "'Evil things'? What kind of—"

The bann clenched his jaw, eyes narrowed and expression guarded, as if he feared we would think him insane.

"Some call them the walking dead; decomposing corpses returning to life with a hunger for human flesh…." He shook his head, appearing not to want to believe it himself. "Men who… who are ceaseless, continuing despite the gravest wounds. They hit again the next night, and every night since, with greater numbers than before, their ranks swelled by… by the fallen. With Cailan dead and Loghain starting a war over the throne, no one has responded to my urgent calls for help."

Walking dead… wonderful. It was like something out of one of those lurid, gruesome adventure tales Father didn't approve of me reading.

Behind me, Morrigan made a small 'hmm' in the back of her throat.

"Undead… or spirits possessing the dead. Necromancy, perhaps."

I peered at the woman, thinking for one foolish moment she was showing compassion for the horror these people must have faced, but I saw only mild, rather academic, interest in her expression. She arched one thin brow, and shrugged.

"There could be several causes behind such a thing, none of them pleasant."

Alistair frowned. "It all seems too convenient for my liking. Bann Teagan, you said the arl fell ill just before Ostagar?"

Teagan nodded hesitantly. "Yes, but… Alistair, you're not suggesting what has happened here is related to Cailan's death?"

I sighed inwardly. He wouldn't be satisfied, it seemed, until he'd built himself an incontrovertible proof of Loghain's treachery. I still struggled to believe it. Ostagar had been a disaster, not a trap—the darkspawn had outmanoeuvred us, plain and simple.

Yet… we didn't know the truth of things since then, did we? The teyrn declaring himself regent, setting the bounty on Grey Wardens…. Either he genuinely believed, in some addled way, that we _were_ responsible, or it was an effort to silence the only survivors who knew what he'd done. But to think that it might have been part of some wider plan, some premeditated bid to seize power….

Based on what I knew, I didn't trust myself to choose between those options. I hadn't thought I'd have to. Redcliffe was supposed to save us from that. It was supposed to be the place where all the problems were solved, and the questions answered… and that wasn't working out so well, was it?

I cleared my throat, and looked warily at Alistair before addressing the bann.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but Arl Eamon is an heir to the throne now, isn't he?"

Teagan winced. "Our sister was Cailan's mother. I suppose we've royal blood, but it's a shaky claim to the throne… though still marginally better than Loghain's." His brows drew into a dark pinch above sharp, blue eyes. "It _does _mean Eamon could intervene in Loghain's bid for the throne. But we shouldn't leap to conclusions. However this madness began, my primary concern now is protecting these people—and I have a feeling that tonight's assault will be the worst yet." His mouth tightened, and he looked beseechingly at Alistair. "I hate to ask this, but—"

My gut plummeted. Still, pitting ourselves against legions of undead—if such things really existed—couldn't be much worse than the darkspawn, could it? I glanced at Alistair, and found him looking utterly wretched. He shook his head.

"It isn't just up to me…." he began, and shot me an uncomfortable, imploring look.

They were all looking at me, I realised. My companions, and the nobleman before me, and the white, frightened faces of the dispossessed.

_Maker's balls…._

I still wasn't quite sure at exactly what point I'd been landed with the mantle of command or, perhaps more accurately, the fingerless mittens of gentle suggestion. Looking at those who travelled with me, I didn't think for a moment that—if I chose to declare something as an order—they would leap to it without question. _I _wouldn't take orders from me… not that I was about to start barking them, in any case.

I frowned, bit my lip, and glanced at Alistair again before I addressed the bann.

"Of course we'll help, if we can. I… don't know if I speak for all of us, though."

A look over my shoulder confirmed my suspicion. Sten's face shifted into a disapproving scowl, like a rockslide in slow motion, and he folded his arms across his massive chest.

"There are no darkspawn here, and nothing to gain. It is a fool's errand."

"There is nothing foolish about defending the helpless," Leliana protested. "Look at these people! We must help them."

Morrigan snorted. "Pointless, when they face an impossible battle—one that is apparently already half-lost. One would think we had enough to contend with elsewhere."

"And so you would leave them to their fate?" Leliana widened her eyes incredulously. "Well, I cannot. I say we offer whatever aid we can."

I cleared my throat, and was unnervingly aware of the way silence fell, and four pairs of eyes fixed on me.

"It, er, seems to me," I began hesitantly, "that if Loghain's determined to have us down as traitors, we need an ally to convince the bannorn on our behalf."

"Yet the man you seek for the role may already be dead," Morrigan snapped. "If we have any business here at all, it is at the castle, not among—"

"Ooh, brilliant, yes." Alistair scoffed. "The very large, impenetrable fortress that the massed ranks of walking dead are coming _from_? No, you're right. Maybe if we go up and knock on the gates, they'll let us in after all."

She scowled, and I felt the first twinges of a headache begin to thud at my temples.

"We don't know the arl is dead," I said shortly, raising my voice a little. It echoed off the chantry's beautifully carved stonework. "And we're not exactly overrun with allies. Even if you don't feel compassion for these people, the support of Redcliffe is worth fighting for, surely?"

Morrigan's dark-painted lips folded in on themselves, and the eerie golden gaze grew a little harder, but she tilted her head to the side in dismissive acknowledgement, like a dog gracelessly accepting its bone being taken away.

"If you say so," she muttered.

I looked at Bann Teagan. "Would it be enough?" I asked hesitantly. "If we help you fight these… things… would there be a chance of getting into the castle, seeing if the arl can be saved?"

He nodded fervently. "Yes. That is certainly my hope. If we can find the source, then— So, you _will _help us?"

I glanced at Sten. His unsettling violet eyes, glaring out from beneath the crevasse of his brow, narrowed slightly. He inclined his head—a barely perceptible nod—and I returned the gesture, hoping I at least appeared as dignified as he, and that no one could tell my heart was thumping like a frightened rabbit.

"We will," I said, with a small smile. "I hope it makes a difference."

A breathless sigh of relief broke from the bann. "Thank you! Thank you, this… this means more to me than you can guess. Tomas, please tell Murdock what transpired. Then return to your post."

"Yes, my lord."

The boy who'd brought us down from the cliff path bowed, and darted away, no doubt full of gossip.

Bann Teagan nodded, seeming a little less weary than he had before.

"I've put two men in charge of the defence outside. Murdock, the village mayor, is outside the chantry. Ser Perth, one of Eamon's knights, is just up the cliff at the windmill, watching the castle."

"The arl's knights are here in the village?" I asked, faintly confused.

"A few," he replied. "Those that have returned from their quest… I take it you do not know of this?"

I shook my head. "No."

Teagan's mouth tightened; something on the way to a mirthless smile.

"Hm. After my brother fell ill, we tried everything to cure him. Nothing worked. The arlessa became convinced that the Urn of Sacred Ashes was the answer." He looked faintly embarrassed. "It _is_ reputed to have miraculous powers, but… I am a practical man, while Lady Isolde is a woman of great faith. I can't say I agreed with her decision to send so many men off in search of a relic that may never be found. Still, what's done is done."

"I… see."

I recalled the vague mention Alistair had made of the arlessa. Not exactly a flattering portrait.

"I assume," he said, "that you can't evacuate the village?"

The briefest look around the chantry would have answered that question, I thought. These people were exhausted, many of them too old, too young, or too weak to travel.

Bann Teagan shook his head. "Believe me, we've tried. Those who tried to leave were attacked on the road—in broad daylight, no less. Any attempt at escape simply brings an immediate attack." He leaned in, lowering his voice, his face clouded and dour. "I am afraid, whatever is behind this evil, it has no intention of stopping until… well. You see how desperate things are."

Alistair and I exchanged looks. That much was certainly obvious. Twin impulses beat in me, split evenly between the desire to help these people, and the urge to flee, writing Redcliffe off as a lost cause.

However this had begun, I couldn't see a way it could end well, and nor could I see a way that those in the castle would have been spared. The mere thought of what might lie up there—the possibility of demons and unnameable horrors, the like of which I'd only ever read about in storybooks, and never taken seriously, even then—turned my spine to water. Maybe, I told myself, Morrigan was wrong. At least… I hoped so.

"Now, there is not much daylight left." Bann Teagan clapped his hands together, trying to inject a brisk, busy brightness into his words. It didn't do much to disguise his anxiety. "I must see that everyone is gathered safely, and we will begin building the barricades. Luck be with you, my friends."

He bowed his head to us, and excused himself to help the revered mother shepherd a gaggle of children into one of the side chapels. One of them was bawling, red-faced, for its mother. I had the sense we'd been summarily dismissed, and turned to look at my companions.

Morrigan crossed her arms and gave me a rather self-satisfied smile.

"Well, then. Pleased with ourself, are we?"

The low-grade thump in my temples began to spread out in a band across the whole front of my head. I met her gaze.

"Ask me again in the morning," I said dryly.


	7. Chapter 7

_Author's note: Continued and heartfelt thanks to my readers and reviewers! And all that happy holidays stuff, too. ;) ~ana

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**CHAPTER SEVEN**

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There was a girl over by the chantry's wide, wooden doors. She was hunched against the wall, her shoulders shaking as she tried to hide her sobs. As I turned away from the others, leaving them to the quiet murmurs of indecision—and Morrigan's scouring displeasure—she caught my attention. I wouldn't normally have approached, given that most of the humans here were in some degree of distress and would probably not welcome elven interference, but she seemed to be completely alone, and she couldn't have been more than thirteen, maybe fifteen years old.

I cleared my throat. "Um. Are you all right?"

"I-I'm sorry…." The girl looked up at me; cheeks tear-stained and nose running. "I didn't mean to bother you."

Her face creased up and she slid down the wall, arms wrapped around her head as she sobbed and hiccoughed. I swallowed hard, suddenly not seeing a shem sitting there anymore, but Shianni, scrabbling to cover herself with a torn and filthy dress, and crying so hard she couldn't stand.

Maethor padded past me and shoved his wrinkled snout straight into her lap, wagging his stumpy tail encouragingly. I had to smile. Despite the muddy clumps in his filthy coat, the muscles outlined underneath like frogs in oil, the terrible breath and his habit of rolling in every pile of foulness he found on the road, he had a very compassionate nature.

"Oh…." The girl sniffed and blinked in surprise. "H-Hello, there."

Maethor licked her hand, and a brief, shaky smile teetered across her lips. I crouched down beside her, and reached a tentative hand to her shoulder.

"What happened to you?"

"Those… those _things _dragged my mother away." She peered blearily up at me, and gave a thick, wet snort. "I just… I can hear her screaming all the time, everywhere!"

Maethor whined, and my heart went out to the girl. I squeezed her shoulder, not sure what else I should do. She curled her fingers hesitantly around the mabari's small, soft, creased ears.

"Now my brother's run off too," she managed, her voice rising to a pale, querulous tremor. "Bevin's only little, he doesn't understand about what happened to Mother, he doesn't… oh, what if he's gone looking for her? What… what if they got _him_, too? I'm so scared he's—"

She dissolved into explosive, racking sobs, holding onto Maethor like he was the last defence she had against grief. I patted her back gingerly, knowing as I tried to rub away some of the hurt that it couldn't possibly do any good.

Glancing up, I was aware of Leliana standing behind me, looking down at the girl with an expression of intense, lucid sympathy.

"How terrible! You poor thing… I wish there was something we could do to help."

I hadn't realised the others had noticed my absence, much less begun to head over to join me. The girl looked up at Leliana tearfully, and sniffed again.

"I went to our house… it's by the square, b-but Bevin wasn't there. I searched all over. I called and I called but he never answered. He could have run off into the woods, or—"

"If that is the case," Morrigan observed coolly, "then he is no doubt already dead. You should get used to that fact."

The girl's lip trembled and, with a wail, she burst into a round of renewed sobbing. Maethor whined and licked her face. It was either a gesture of sympathy, or appreciation for the salt, I supposed.

"Nice," Alistair muttered. "Maybe you want to kick her in the head while you're at it?"

The witch snorted and folded her arms. "Shall we comfort her with lies? If she is to face death, better she face it honestly."

The girl bawled, red-faced and howling. I patted her shoulder and cast around for something helpful to say.

"Er…."

"Maybe we could look for him," Leliana suggested, giving me an expectant glance.

Behind me, Morrigan groaned theatrically. The girl didn't seem to notice it, though. She raised her head, fingers still curled on Maethor's flat bullet of a skull.

"Y-You will? Thank you so much! Please… please find him!"

Morrigan started to mutter something about not being in the business of recovering corpses, but the girl was apparently deafened enough by hope not to hear it.

"M-My name's Kaitlyn," she said, looking up at me with a wide-eyed awe that I was not used to seeing on humans. "Our house is just on the side of the square, past Master Otho's shop. If you find Bevin, tell him how worried I've been…."

"I'll do my best." I patted her hand and was only too glad to extricate myself.

The chantry had begun to feel far too oppressive. That dusty, pervasive smell of beeswax furniture polish and stifled sanctity—so familiar from my few visits to the cathedral back home, yet such a pale shadow here, nudging my memories with only a few threads of commonality—tickled in the back of my throat. At least half the village had to be in here, I thought, which begged the question of where the other half were… or what had happened to them.

"Excuse me?"

Another voice, this one older and softer, its edges worn down by an altogether quieter grief, tugged at me. I turned and found a woman with dark hair tingeing to grey pulled back from her temples, her face lined and heavily shadowed, though her manner was restrained.

"I apologise," she said, with politeness that still sent a light shiver of confusion through me, "but I couldn't help overhearing. You… you are Grey Wardens?"

Alistair and I exchanged glances. Not that it mattered; this place was such a mess of chaos and confusion that everyone would hear soon enough… and probably no one would care. Besides, even if the bounty on our heads was deemed temptation enough, who could we be turned in to?

I nodded. "Yes, we are."

Relief flushed her cheeks, for a second wiping away some of the haggardness, and her lips formed an imperfect 'o'.

"Please… were you at Ostagar? In the Korcari Wilds?"

She looked from one of us to the other, and it was Alistair who answered her, with a tight nod of his head.

"Yes."

The woman exhaled, one hand going to her mouth and the other outstretched in a gesture of terrible pleading.

"My husband and son were both there. They were missionaries, sent to bring the Chant of Light to the Chasind, but I haven't heard from them since."

Alistair looked nonplussed, and as if he was about to reach for an excuse, but recognition knocked at the back of my mind, nudging its way through my burgeoning headache.

"Are you Jetta?" I asked, dropping my pack from my shoulder.

"I am." Her brow furrowed apprehensively. "You've heard of me?"

"Um, yes…." I couldn't quite bring myself to meet her eye, and ferreted busily in the pack, looking for the scuffed little box that had miraculously survived Ishal, when so many of my own belongings had been lost.

I thought briefly of the moment I'd unearthed the thing, buried beneath the firepit in the missionary's wrecked camp, and how I'd stowed it away out of some vague sense of respect, while Daveth had been cheerfully jemmying the dead man's supply trunk. Funny, because recalling it now reminded me of those damp, chilly hours in the Wilds, when I'd believed the men I was with would be my new comrades, not yet more lost faces I would leave behind.

I straightened up, holding out the lockbox, and hoping I wouldn't have to spell out what it meant. If Jetta recognised the thing immediately, she was trying to deny it to herself. A frown creased her forehead and a strange look crossed her eyes. I didn't fully understand it then, though I could distinguish the rough shape of the thing. It was the pain of fearing a truth, but only being stung by its full breadth after too long not knowing… the way I feared all the things that might already have happened back home, I supposed, absurdly surprised at the common ground this woman and I shared. It was a feeling that, in time, I would learn to know better, and I would realise that, in such circumstances, hope can only be clung to for so long before it becomes more of a millstone than a comfort.

"His lockbox," she murmured, shaking her head slowly, and I could see that the battle between acceptance and denial was over. "Oh, Rigby…. Our son, too?"

"Yes. I'm very sorry," I said, pushing the box towards her. "Your husband wanted you to have this. I'd been hoping we'd be able to find you."

Jetta's face crumpled, though her dignity was magnificent. "Thank you."

She took the lockbox, fingers tracing its lid and hinges tenderly, and tears misted her eyes.

"We, er, gave them both a decent burial," I said, with a glance at Alistair.

He blinked, then nodded belatedly. "Ah, er… yes."

Well, it was half-true. We'd given Missionary Rigby back to the earth, because the Wilds were too wet and full of darkspawn to spend time trying to light a fire, but Jogby had been too decomposed to even bother fishing out of the stagnant water we'd found him in. Still, half a truth was better than nothing, I supposed.

"Thank you so much for bringing this to me." Jetta sniffled. "It means a great deal, and… well, at least I _know _now. I appreciate what you did. Maker's blessings upon you, Wardens."

I could feel the weight of Morrigan's bored disapproval pressing against the back of my neck, and I didn't dare look round. Sten's little gaggle of admirers wasn't far behind, either: wide-eyed children, distracted for just a moment from the fear and discomfort of the village's suffering by the appearance of this strange and striking giant. They kept creeping between the pews, staring up at him and then scampering back, giggling, whenever he moved. His tight exhalation of breath—like a dry wind through a wide cavern—reminded me we should probably head back outside.

There was much to do, as Bann Teagan had said, and not a lot of daylight left.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Outside the chantry, men in ill-fitting odds and ends of armour were criss-crossing the dirt-packed expanse of the square, shoring up the barricades and carrying out what looked to be futile attempts at preparation for the night to come. These people had nothing, I realised; nothing except the grimly packed determination and fear of those who have not yet lost everything, but are readying themselves to do so. The sense of hopelessness was almost palpable, and I shivered.

The man we'd spotted before, with the dark moustache—the man I now assumed to be Murdock—nodded at us, and strode evenly across the square, meeting us beside one of the barricades.

"So, you're the Grey Wardens, are you?" Those small, dark, heavy-lidded eyes roved charily over Alistair, then me, and the man gave a short cough of bitter laughter, his low, gravely voice thick with scorn. "Huh. I didn't think they made… _women _Grey Wardens."

I knew exactly what he meant and, though he'd at least had the grace to leave it unsaid, it was unclear whether my gender or my race appalled him more. I waited a beat before I answered, taking care to keep my face as blank as I could.

"And why ever would you think that?"

There was a sharp, brittle edge to the words that didn't sound quite like me. I wasn't sure how it had snuck in there… or whether I liked it.

Murdock snorted. "For more reasons than you'd care to hear, I bet. Still, there's no reason to think Bann Teagan's lost his mind. We aren't going to turn aside anyone who wants to help… we're not ingrates or nothing."

"Well, we do want to help," Alistair said, his earnest sincerity almost disguising Morrigan's quiet scoff. "You can trust us."

"Hmm." The man sniffed, and folded his broad arms across his chest. "All right, then. Name's Murdock, mayor of what's left of the village."

We shuffled through the introductions, Alistair having the presence of mind to gloss over the origins of our companions as best he could. The people of Redcliffe might be desperate, but there were still political sensitivities that surrounded marching into a place, flanked by an Orlesian, an apostate and a qunari… besides the fact it sounded like the start of a bad joke.

I glanced at the barricades, quietly counting the paths up the cliff, and reading the turns and blind corners in the village's narrow streets. It was a lot like the market district back home, though there would be more to worry about running into here than shems with greasy sneers and busy hands. Still, there were—I counted under my breath—three, maybe four routes that fed into the square. From there, the chantry had its broadest side, and the back of the building was set solidly against rock and the rears of other buildings, with a slope leading down to the lakeside. It was solidly built; easily the largest, most durable structure in the village, next to the rows of cottages and stores with their narrow-pitched roofs and the odd, stilt-supported platforms that overhung the water down at the shoreline. Wooden smokehouses lined the lower part of the slope, testament to the reliance the place must have on fish.

No boats out today, by the look of things, nor for some time.

Alistair was asking Murdock pertinent questions about the nature of the attacks, the losses, and the quantities of men and arms at the village's disposal. None of it was good news. The things swarmed down from the castle, killing and destroying without mercy or distinction, and those they slew only swelled their ranks. With no way out, no supplies, and no military training… well, it was a miracle the villagers had survived this long.

"So you fall back to here?" I asked absently, narrowing my eyes against the glare of the lowering sun as I scanned the ridge above us.

Strange how, from up there, the place had looked so quiet and peaceful.

"Aye." Murdock nodded. "We're the last defenders of them folks in the chantry—the women, elderly, and the children. They're the ones we need to protect."

Behind me, Sten grunted derisively. The others had been silent up until now, and I peered back at him, faintly surprised, though I found his face as deadpan as ever, locked into that slight scowl of disapproval. His gaze met mine, and his words dropped like hot coals.

"The weak must learn to protect themselves."

"Right," Alistair said, arching an eyebrow. "Yes. Those helpless bastards. How dare they?"

I doubted his sarcasm was truly lost on Sten, but it went unacknowledged.

"No qunari would ever cower helplessly," Sten stated flatly. In a less monolithic sort of person—or had I known him better then—it might have been possible to detect a whiff of nostalgic pride. "Not woman, nor elder, nor child. They would fight for their survival with tooth and nail."

There was a beat of dry silence, during which I supposed we were all contemplating that less-than-soothing image. Murdock cleared his throat.

"Well… we're not qunari. And I'm not asking those folk to fight monsters." He wrinkled his nose, falling back on belligerence to hide his discomfort, I supposed. "No matter what happens, we can't let them evil things in there… and that's that."

"All right." I nodded slowly, beginning to grasp something of the local character in these parts. Typical Fereldan bull-headedness was one thing, but this was an altogether grittier resolve, and I was grudgingly impressed. "Then what we can do to help?"

"Well, we need what little armour and weapons we've got repaired, and quickly, or half of us will be fighting without either." Murdock's moustache bristled as he sucked his teeth, eyes narrowed. "Owen's the only blacksmith who can do it, but the stubborn fool refuses to even talk. If we're to be ready for tonight, we'll need that crotchety bastard's help."

Great, I thought. Walking undead _and_ cantankerous shems.

"Er… why does he refuse to talk?"

"Huh. His daughter, Valena, is one of the arlessa's maids, so he hasn't heard from her since this whole business started. He demanded we attack the castle, break down the gate, and force our way in." He shook his head incredulously. "I said it was impossible, but he wouldn't listen. He's locked himself in the smithy now. I can't force him to do the repairs… especially when he says he'd rather die first."

I glanced at Sten, half-expecting either him or Morrigan to suggest we grant the man's wish, but both were mercifully silent.

"We'll talk to him," I promised. "Is there anything else you need?"

Murdock shrugged, and I could read his thoughts plainly on that strip of sunburnt face. He didn't think for a moment we'd make any difference, and he most likely considered me an insolent knife-eared wench, but I could see the interest with which he eyed my companions.

"Some extra bodies'll be handy," he conceded, looking over my shoulder at Sten. "And having a veteran like Dwyn in the militia would help a lot, but _he _flat out refuses."

"Who's Dwyn?"

Murdock barely acknowledged my question, and I'd have wagered good coin he was trying to work out how to cobble together armour the right size for a qunari.

"Hm? Oh, he's a trader, a dwarf. Lives near the lake. Locked himself up in his home with some of his workers, he has, says he doesn't need any of us. As you can imagine, it doesn't exactly help morale."

"What about supplies?" Alistair asked.

"Err… commerce isn't exactly our first concern right now," Murdock said dryly. "No one's trading. There's nothing to be had… though you might try Lloyd, up at the tavern." He pointed to the top of the ridge. "Chances are he could have a few odds and ends he's been keeping back. I wouldn't be surprised. Other than that, the stores are all boarded up or empty. We've taken everything we can use… much good it's done us."

"Well," I said dubiously, "I suppose we should try talking to Owen."

The tail of a question hid beneath the words, and I looked at Alistair as I spoke, rather hoping he might have some impulsive burst of leadership, or be busily formulating some miraculous strategy. He just nodded, and waited until I sighed and trudged off across the square, following Murdock's directions towards the smithy. Irritation prickled beneath my skin… as if I didn't already have enough reasons to be annoyed with him.

It was neither the time nor place, however, so I forced the exasperation down, wadded it up into a dark little ball, and made my way up to the front of the forge, aware not just of my companions traipsing behind me, but of Murdock and his militiamen watching us.

The door of the smithy was locked up tight, stout and heavy enough to be immovable. A quick glance around the building's low frontage confirmed there was no other way in: the windows were shuttered up and too small even for me to squeeze through.

"It would be quicker to break it down," Sten observed.

"Maybe," I agreed, "but it won't make the man any likelier to be helpful."

He grunted, which I took as a show of support for the do-as-I-say-or-I'll-rip-your-arms-off school of encouragement. I suspected it would have its place in the events to come, but decided I'd rather try diplomacy first.

I bunched up a fist and knocked sharply on the smithy door.

"Hello?"

After a second knock, a man's voice came, muffled, through the studded wood.

"Go away, curse you! Can't you leave me in peace? You've already taken everything out of my stores! There's nothing left!"

The words were coupled with the mangled sound of wood barking on stone, like someone tripping over a small table. I winced, and leaned closer to the door.

"Is this Owen, the blacksmith? I need to speak with you."

"What?" Another stumbling clatter, and the voice seemed a bit closer, though no clearer. "Who's that? What do you want? I've been through enough…."

Sten shifted, giving silent but undeniable expression to his irritation.

"I say melt out the lock," Morrigan muttered. "'Tis simple enough. Just a small fireball—"

"No fireballs!" I hissed. "Just… just a minute."

It was becoming embarrassing: the five of us—six including Maethor, who was widdling up a nearby tree—crowded around the smithy door and getting absolutely nowhere. I hoped Murdock and his boys were having a good laugh at our expense; Maker knew they needed to grab the opportunity while they could.

"Look," Alistair tried, raising his voice. "It would be much better if we could speak to you, er, not through a door. Can we come in? Please?"

Morrigan snorted. He pulled a face at her.

"We only want to talk to you," Leliana put in, and I wondered if the prospect of an Orlesian girl on his doorstep might change Owen's mind. "Please?"

There was some further shuffling from within, and something that sounded like the faint glug of liquid.

"No," barked the voice, apparently after some consideration. "I… I don't know you people, and I don't want to. Go away!"

I groaned in frustration. My head hurt and I was increasingly tempted to let Sten rip the door off its hinges, if he was so inclined. I smacked my palm against the wood.

"We need your help, smith! And I'm not moving until someone opens this bloody door, so you can either let us in, or I'll stand here annoying you all day."

There was a long, dramatic sigh. "Oh, all right, all right…. I don't know why you're so determined. Here, I'll get the locks."

I grinned, relishing the small flush of triumph, and we waited as what sounded like an entire costermonger's barrow was drawn back behind the thick wood.

Inside, the smithy was stifling: dark and choked with the stink of cheap booze and stale human sweat. The forge itself lay cold and soot-smudged, no work going on, nor any care for the tools abandoned on the benches. Drifts of empty bottles and broken jugs littered the floor. I could see what Owen had meant by Murdock's militia plundering his stock. The racks on the walls were empty, and the whole place looked like it had been turned over by a hurricane… possibly a very, very drunk hurricane.

"Maker's breath!" Leliana gasped. "What is that _smell_? It's like someone set a brewery on fire!"

"Somebody's been drinking," Alistair observed, in a quiet sing-song tone.

He wasn't wrong. As the smith himself lurched out from behind the door, I was hard-pressed not to recoil in disgust. It appeared to be a miracle Owen could actually stand up, much less formulate complete sentences. The combined odours of unwashed shem, stale piss, vomit, soot, leather, and rat-spit brandy were like an impenetrable, solid aura, extending several feet beyond his pouch-eyed, dishevelled person. A matted grey beard reached halfway to his chest, and his breath could have stripped paint.

"All right," Owen slurred. "So I let you in. You wanted to talk; now we're talking. Mind telling me who you are?"

I stifled a cough. "My… my name is Merien. My friends and I are… are here to, er, help…."

"Oh, yeah?" He cast a bleary glance over our ragtag band, and wrinkled his nose. "Huh. Takes all kinds, I s'pose. Funny, you didn't sound like an elf through the door. Can't say I expected that."

My back tensed a little, but the human didn't appear to be holding it against me. He looked me up and down—or at least peered vaguely at the bit of the room spinning in my direction—and shrugged as he reached for a half-empty bottle that stood by the bellows.

"Anyhow, my name's Owen… though you might already know that." He raised the bottle, swigged, belched, and then offered it out in a wavering salute. "Care to join me as I get besotted?"

"Er… no, thanks," I said, as tactfully as I could manage. "How long have you been shut up in here?"

The man's great, scored brow furrowed, and he sneered.

"Dunno. Two days, maybe. Three? Not that it matters. My girl… she's up there in the castle, dead or soon to be. And that bastard Murdock won't even _try_ to find her."

I crossed my arms. Slightly firmer ground here; no worse than dealing with my late Uncle Merenir on one of his rougher days.

The smith glared fuzzily at me, swaying slightly. "You… you don't unnerstan', you don't…. Valena's been my life since my wife passed on. Without her, I don't care what happens to me, or the village, or anyone."

"So you're going to drink yourself to death?" I demanded. "D'you think she'd be proud of you?"

"She won't know if she's dead." Owen scoffed. "And why shouldn't I? I've failed her, and it's not like any of us are gonna live past the night anyhow. Or are _you _going to save us?"

Scorn seeped from his voice, but it was hard to tell whether it was genuine hostility, or just the booze. I was aware of the restive shifting of feet behind me, and felt acutely defenceless, pierced by scrutiny on all sides. That rankled, and I rebelled against it, no longer prepared to tolerate the derision of humans.

"I intend to try," I said haughtily.

"Oh, is that so?" The bottle stilled on the way to Owen's lips. He paused, then swigged, and grimaced. "Huh. Maybe it's the drink talking, but you almost sound like you believe that."

I set my jaw. "I do. So, will you help?"

The smith's bloodshot gaze wavered as I stared at him, unflinching, and after what felt like an age, he snorted.

"You do somethin' for me, and I'll consider it." Owen belched again, and pointed the almost empty bottle at me. "It'd do me a world of good, say, to think maybe someone could get up to the castle and find my girl."

"But no one can get into the castle!" Alistair protested. "Don't you think you're being unrea—"

"It might be possible," I said quickly, cutting across him. "But to _do _that, we would need your help. Think about it. If you stay locked in here, and you do nothing to help, those men out there—those men trying to defend this village—they'll die. Everyone will die, and no one will ever find Valena. But help us tonight… and we might have a chance."

Owen narrowed his eyes, mouth crumpling into a sour twist. He shook his head.

"Not good enough," he grumbled, slamming the empty bottle down on the bench. "Murdock said jus' the same damned thing. You promise me. _Promise_, you hear?"

I'd heard it before: the wheedling, childlike whine of a drunk just short of throwing a punch. It was usually the point where Soris used to come knocking at our door and ask Father to go back with him. He would, and sometimes he'd bring Uncle Merenir round to ours, where he could calm down and sober up in the quiet.

Of course, familiarity didn't give me any more patience. I sighed—a terse, hard breath of frustration—and I obviously wasn't alone in my irritation.

"You are asking a great deal, you wretched little man," Morrigan snapped, grip tightening on the neck of her staff.

The smith was either too drunk or too distraught to take the warning, and he wobbled unsteadily as he lurched towards me, one meaty finger pointed at my face. A father's agony of loss twisted in the patchwork of broken veins that ran across his nose and cheeks.

"I want a promise," he slurred. "You… you promise me that you'll look for her, that you'll bring her back to me if you can."

For all his flabby, stinking, matted humanness—everything I'd been brought up to revile and despise in shems—I felt sorry for the man. No loss is ever easy, even in the teeth of the most monstrous circumstances.

"And if she's dead?" I asked, his potent breath fanning my face.

It felt cruel; I knew it was when I saw the lurch of a knife turning in Owen's pale, runny eyes.

"Then at least I'll know," he grated out thickly. "You'll give an old man that, won't you?"

"All right." I nodded. "I promise you: I'll find her."

He rocked backwards in a gale of fumes and relief, and let out a sigh that it would have been extremely dangerous to put a match to.

"Hm." Behind me, Sten gave a small, disapproving grunt. "Is this a promise we do not intend to keep?"

"Let's hope not," Morrigan muttered, gaze fixed on the red-shadowed ceiling.

"Eh?" Owen was drunk, but not so drunk he missed that. "What's this?"

Sten narrowed those peculiarly bright eyes of his. "I said nothing to you, human."

The smith nodded uncertainly, a small frown still knitting his sweaty brow. "Right. Well, then. I suppose there's no point in me sitting around. Time to re-light the forge and get the smithy going, eh? Murdock'll be pleased."

He glanced around at the mess, seeming almost not to notice the strewn chaos and devastation. I wanted very much to be outside again, away from this claustrophobic, stifling space, but I knew we weren't quite finished yet.

"You'll need some help with the forge, yes?" I asked, nodding at the bellows.

"Hm? Oh…."

Owen squinted muzzily at the cold ashes, as if he couldn't remember the fire going out. He probably couldn't, I guessed. I turned to Sten and gave him a meaningful look.

"My friend has a strong arm. If he helps you, perhaps you could see your way clear to fixing him up with some armour that fits? He has terrible trouble finding anything in the right size."

If we survived this little escapade, I was going to get my arms torn off later. I was fairly certain of the fact, though Sten's expression barely flickered. Owen peered at him and then gave a rough, brackish chuckle.

"Yeah… big lad, aren't yer? All right, I'll see what I can do. Much obliged. And if you need anything else before tonight, you jus' say the word."

I nodded, and managed a grim little smile. "Thank you."

_**~o~O~o~**_

Outside the smithy, we paused to count through what still needed to be done before sunset. I couldn't quite adjust to the way they were all looking at me, expecting decisions and… what? Orders?

"So," Alistair said hopefully, "what now?"

I scratched my head, aware of how greasy my hair was, and how much of the road's dust and grime clung to my skin, despite all the effort we'd made at looking presentable for our arrival here… our arrival at the castle. Not that there was any sense in dwelling on how off-course all our assumptions had been, I supposed—or what it would mean for the wider shadows that loomed above us. Every hour that passed could mean the darkspawn edging further north, and there was nothing we could do about it. Not yet… but thinking about it would only bring madness, and before anyone had time to go mad, we had a job to do.

"Um… right." I glanced up at the sky. Late afternoon sun painted the clouds with thick streaks of lazy gold, but it was hard to see the beauty in it. I dragged my attention back to the matter in hand. "Leliana, would you please let Murdock know that Owen's willing to undertake the repairs?"

She nodded. "I will do it."

The way she drew herself up ever so slightly, shoulders squared and face calm, made me want to shudder with fear. This wasn't what I'd pictured, what I'd ever imagined that— I pulled myself away from the thoughts, and the overwhelming sense of fraudulence. No time to let it fester now. I had to _think_.

"Now, Morrigan—"

The witch gave me an insouciant glare. "Oh, I am to jump to your order now too, am I?"

The gentle clink of fitments on armour spoke of Alistair tightening his stance beside me. I wasn't sure if it was a show of loyalty or just plain irritation, but we didn't have time for the two of them to square off now. I shrugged, pretending the ferocity in her flame-like eyes didn't scare me.

"Do it or don't do it, but I imagine you know best of all of us what we're likely to see once the sun goes down."

She blinked—oh, very briefly, but I saw it—and I took the advantage of having wrong-footed her.

"Before, when we spoke with Bann Teagan, you mentioned spirits possessing the dead… even n-necromancy." I bit back just in time on saying 'foul magic' and spitting, like the old folks back home, and made myself meet that unsettling golden gaze. "I think you should speak with the men who've faced these things, see if you can find out what might be going on here. Corpses don't just get up and walk… there must be a reason, and if we can work out what it is, we'll have an advantage."

I would have liked it to sound like a rousing, commanding speech—as if I really had a plan, or indeed any idea what I was doing—but the words came out in a rushed tumble, and I was sure my nerves were showing.

Morrigan's lips twitched, a subtle little twist of something that, for a moment, almost resembled respect.

"You're letting her loose on the village?" Alistair queried, eyebrows raised. "Really? You don't think they have enough problems?"

She glowered at him. "_I _would say she is simply showing a much-needed grain of intelligence. In any case, I shall do it."

I inclined my head. "Thank you. Alistair and I will see Ser Perth, then meet you both down by the jetty and try to find this dwarven merchant. Sound fair?"

There was assorted nodding and murmurs of assent. We had an accord, it seemed… and nobody had questioned me. I almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of that although, as I headed back up to the ridge, I had to admit that having both Alistair and Maethor pacing at my side lent me a certain amount of authority.

It was a start, anyway.

The mill was an ungainly structure, and its wooden exterior bore the marks of years of running repairs. It was a big, ugly, hard-working building, and it should have been central to the village. There should have been workers, trade carts, women going to and fro with bags of flour… all sorts of hubbub and activity, but the place was deserted, except for a small band of the arl's knights standing guard.

There wasn't wind enough today to drive the great, ragged sails, and evidently no ox or pony was harnessed inside. Still, they creaked, shifting slightly against their own weight, like they were straining for the momentum to push forwards and being to turn, as if the very fabric of the building wanted things to be back to normal, to cling to the routines and small sanities of life.

I hung back a little at the top of the cliff, unsure as to how to approach the group of tall, well-armed humans. The knights wore heavy plate armour that glinted in the thick, syrupy light, the sun flaring from half a dozen broad bodies. Their chests and shoulders were etched with unfamiliar heraldry that seemed to me to comprise the snorting, snarling faces of strange beasts and weird creatures, and the shields slung across their backs bore what I guessed must be the symbol of the arling: a stylised tower that stood starkly atop a red cliff, unsupported and alone, as if daring the heavens to strike it down.

Maethor thrust his cold, wet nose into my palm, and I almost took off, glancing down reproachfully at him. The mabari wagged his tail, and I scratched his ears.

"All right," I muttered. "I'm going."

We'd been spotted, in any case. The first of the knights—whom I assumed to be the commander Bann Teagan had mentioned—was crossing the gritty earth towards us, one hand raised in an awkward sort of greeting.

"Greetings, Grey Wardens," he called as we drew closer.

"Greetings," Alistair echoed. "Ser Perth, I assume?"

"Indeed."

The man clinked as he moved; a great, bright, keen presence with sharp features and lines of deep fatigue and worry carved into his fair skin. He inclined his head, but his formal politeness was stained with a very earnest desperation. I could almost smell it on him.

"I am as relieved as Bann Teagan is to see you here," he said. "Your arrival is… most fortuitous."

"Well, anything we can do to help. I'm Alistair, by the way."

"An honour, ser."

Another of those polite nods, and Ser Perth turned to me. I expected the momentary flicker of surprise, though he had the manners to try to hide it.

"Merien," I supplemented.

I got the same incline of the head as Alistair, or as far as I could see. If I'd been raised in the sort of circles where etiquette was about bows and handshakes, rather than clean doorsteps and respecting the elder's word, I might have been better able to read the subtleties of it.

"My l— um…." Ser Perth cleared his throat, looking at me with a faintly unsettling curiosity. He smiled awkwardly. "I'm sorry. I must admit I know not how to address an elf in your position. I do not wish to be rude."

I blinked. Had he just nearly called me 'my lady'? At least the man had nous enough to know how much like mockery it would have sounded.

"Merien does just fine," I reassured. "Or Meri, to my friends."

It slipped in just the cosy side of cheekiness, and Ser Perth's smile widened, giving me a slight glimpse of the man beneath all that plate and harness. He nodded.

"As you wish, and thank you kindly."

Alistair had been looking up towards the castle—its silhouette a great, dusty rampage beyond the next ridge, shrouded in thin fog like some distant mountain peak—and he seemed to be counting under his breath.

"…four…. These are all the knights you have?"

"Yes." Ser Perth peered over his shoulder at the group of men. "We are but a small number of those who volunteered to seek out the Urn. I, and a few of the others, were passing close enough to Redcliffe to hear rumours of the attacks, and of course we returned at once." He shook his head. "Would that more of us had been here… I don't know. Perhaps we might have fended off whatever evil befell the castle and began all this."

Alistair frowned. "The arlessa really thinks Andraste's Ashes will…?"

He trailed off, apparently unwilling to voice what he actually wanted to say, and some kind of silent communication that made no sense whatsoever to me flitted between the two men. Ser Perth's expression tautened, and he narrowed his eyes.

"Nothing else had worked, and the sickness is… unnatural."

"What d'you mean?"

"Well, it was very sudden. First, the arl began to thirst for water. Then he just grew weaker and weaker. He worsened by the hour, and Lady Isolde became desperate. She even brought in a mage, but he could do nothing. The arlessa believed her husband was cursed and that we needed the power of Andraste herself, or he would surely perish."

Alistair's frown deepened. "But the Urn's been lost for centuries. Why would she think it can be found now?"

"Arl Eamon had been funding the studies of a scholar who was researching the life of Andraste. He claimed to have proof the Ashes are in Ferelden, but… I don't know." The movement of Ser Perth's upper body suggested a shrug flexing somewhere beneath the heavy armour. "As far as I am aware, none of us have found a trace of the scholar, let alone the Urn, but most of the knights are still out there—too far away to recall—and with no idea of what's happening here."

"Then, the forces who remained," Alistair asked, "what of them? Eamon never sent his men to Ostagar, right? There should be at least—"

"I can't tell you," the knight said mournfully. "There may be survivors up at the castle, or they may all be dead, transformed into those… things. The thought chills my blood."

He was not alone. And, in any case, all this talk of legendary religious artefacts might have left me trailing hopelessly behind, but I could at least work out that this did not bode well for the reinforcements _we _so badly needed. The whole point of heading for Redcliffe had been garnering the arl's support—and the weight of his men. I glanced nervously at Alistair, but he wasn't looking at me, and I didn't quite know how to interrupt.

"Well," he said, squinting at the low-slung sun, reaching its lengthening fingers into every crevice of the red rock face, "we'll help however we can. We have a… mage, and, er, a few extra bodies."

Ser Perth brightened, despite the unease writ large on Alistair's face, and I wondered if the knight would still be so pleased once he'd actually met Morrigan.

"This is good to hear, and it will do wonders for the men's morale. After all, with the Grey Wardens aiding our defence, perhaps all is not lost."

A shudder of apprehension worked its way down my spine, though I tried not to let it show.

"Is there anything else we can do?" I asked.

The knight glanced down at me, smiling tightly. "Beyond your assistance, I think not. We are better prepared and better trained than Murdock's militia, but… well, it is a steep task. I have asked Mother Hannah for holy protection—just something the men could have to let them know the Chantry hasn't forgotten them—but she has not yet responded. Other than that… I suppose we are as ready as we can be."

His face held the clear-eyed, hopeful uncertainty of a devout man wavering before impossible odds, and I nodded, wishing there was something I could do, something I could say, that would make the coming night a less terrifying prospect.

"What about the… things?" Alistair asked thoughtfully, peering up towards the castle. "Do arrows bring them down?"

Ser Perth shook his head. "They slow them, that's all. It's a help, but…. We've put what archers we have here, and over there, atop that rock. All that really stops them is… brute force, I'm afraid. Take the heads off, and the bodies fall."

For all my attempts at stoicism, I grimaced. Lovely.

Alistair and Ser Perth went on to speak more of tactics, inasmuch as there were room for any… limited mainly to the positioning of too few archers and crossbowmen, and the problems of holding a line over the entire night. I stood there dumbly, feeling rather small and stupid as they bandied terms I didn't know, and Alistair waved his arms around and talked about where Morrigan might inflict most damage from. I was sure she'd be delighted to know he'd already planned her role in the battle.

"And they don't come any other way?" he asked, turning and peering down over the village. "What about by the lake? Isn't there a path from the northwest side of the castle? Where the old kennels used to be…."

I saw the flicker of understanding in Ser Perth's eyes; he hadn't known Alistair had any knowledge of the castle. Of course, I told myself, it was useful that he did. _He_ was useful… and it was petty and ridiculous of me to suddenly feel so resentful. I'd probably change my tune later tonight, when we were attempting to behead the endless ranks of walking corpses.

"They have not so far," Ser Perth said doubtfully, "but, on every previous attack, we have been forced to fall back. There would have been no need for the creatures to find another way in."

More discussion followed, and I was about as much use as a glass hammer, though I tried to keep up. The lie of the land worked partially in our favour, it seemed; the only accessible routes down from the castle on this side of the ridge meant the attack was funnelled into choke points at the mill, and at the mid-point of the cliff path. Barricades doused liberally in oil and set light could slow the creatures but, like the efforts of the archers, slowing them was all they did. It was the sheer numbers and the tenacity of the things that made them impossible to drive back.

"Hmm." Alistair bit his lip. "No point in dividing what forces we have, then."

"No. The best we can do—and all we've done so far—is to wait it out," Ser Perth said, with a shake of his head. "Between us, and the militia, we take as many of them down as possible, but they always return. It's… unholy."

"We'll stand with you tonight," Alistair assured him. "You have my word."

"Thank you, Warden." Ser Perth smiled and, turning to me, bowed his head. "Thank you both."

I managed some sort of clumsy bow and we took our leave, arranging to use the last few hours of daylight to drum up whatever extra supplies or support that could be found in the dried-out husk of the village.

As we walked away from the knights, Alistair looked tight-lipped and worried. He glanced at me, a slight frown on his brow.

"You were quiet."

"Seemed like you knew what you were talking about," I said glibly, not particularly wanting to discuss it.

He snorted mirthlessly. "Oh, right. You were just dumb-struck at me not being entirely useless."

"Maybe."

"Oh, _ow_. That stings, y'know."

I smirked as we crossed the ridge and headed up towards the tavern, perched atop the cliff path opposite the little stone bridge.

It had seemed like a good idea to stop in on our way back down to the lakeside and just see whether this Lloyd fellow had anything worth bartering for or commandeering but, as we neared the rough-hewn building, there didn't seem to be much life in the place. The shabby, wooden building was still and quiet… except for one of Murdock's boys, doubled over by the outhouse, heaving his guts up from a surfeit either of booze or fear.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Redcliffe was a place of odd contrasts, I thought, as we entered the tavern. For all those well-kept cottages and their little gardens—and all the big, wide-fronted stores down in the square where, in better times, merchants must crowd from all over—this was a poky, sparse inn. Either the Chantry's views on temperance were better heeded here than in Denerim or, I mused, Eamon's arling was not as wealthy as I'd imagined.

The interior smelled of stale rushes, wood polish, sweat and cheap ale—_very_ cheap ale, in fact, which was an absurdly comforting reminder of home for me. We blinked a bit, adjusting to the dimness punctuated by a low fire and a couple of tapers, and it was possible to make out the crowded clutter of tables and benches. There weren't many drinkers; the place was empty but for a gaggle of militiamen over on one side of the tavern and—I was surprised to see—an elf, ensconced in the opposite corner, hunched behind a tankard of ale and apparently trying to make himself invisible.

"Oh, what's this? More doomed souls come to drown their sorrows, I see."

A red-headed woman with a tired, worldly smile and a stained apron greeted us, wiping her hands on a grubby cloth. She frowned dubiously at Maethor, gave me a cursory glance and, predictably enough, addressed Alistair when she spoke again.

"If you came for a drink, ser, you'll have to talk to Lloyd. He's got a vice grip on the spigots. I'm just here to keep the boys from mutiny." She bunched the cloth up in one hand, the other resting on her hip as she looked him up and down, evidently appreciating what she saw. "Unless there's somethin' else I can do you for?"

Alistair cleared his throat, awkwardness positively rolling off him.

"I, er… no. Um. I mean… uh, shouldn't you be at the chantry?"

I choked down the impulse to laugh. Was he actually blushing? The woman smiled, and tucked the corner of the cloth into the belt of her apron.

"Later on, yes." She glanced across at the bar, lowering her voice a little. "Ol' Lloyd'll lock himself in the cellar and I'll go to the chantry." She looked up at Alistair from under her lashes, hesitantly curious. "You're the ones they're talking about, aren't you? Are you… fighting tonight?"

"We are."

He sounded so full of certainty; as if he wasn't just saying we'd fight, but that we'd actually _win_. I wished I could hang onto a glimmer of that conviction.

"That's… good to hear." The woman nodded slowly, her smile growing sad and faded. "I didn't know that. Well, good luck to you. Keep safe."

"Er, thank you. And you," Alistair managed.

It was hardly the epitome of chivalry, but perhaps it was close enough in her eyes. She swayed off to top up the militiamen, and I restrained the urge to snigger… though clearly not very successfully. Alistair shot me a reproachful look.

"Come on."

He headed across to the bar and, with a glance down at Maethor, who cocked his head to the side and whined companionably, I followed.

The innkeeper was a great, greasy man with a belly like a side of pork, barely contained beneath his capacious apron. I recognised the type at once—right down to the big, meaty hands that spread out on the bar top as he leaned over to give us a buttery smile, and left smeared sweat-prints behind them.

"Hello there, friend," he oozed. "Can't say we've ever met before. Strangers to the village, I take it? And what's this, then?" His sandy brows arched as he looked at me. "Another elf! We don't get many of you lot out here. You a runaway from the city, eh?"

I made to speak, but my mouth was dry. Stupid, I told myself. An old, unneeded reaction, and I pushed it from me, squaring my shoulders and preparing an icy reply… which I didn't get the opportunity to wield.

"A 'runaway'?" Alistair intoned disdainfully. "What, she can't be a traveller too?"

The shem's face adjusted itself around the evidently unexpected experience of being put in his place, but business sense won out over any urge to argue, and he shrugged.

"I suppose so," he said doubtfully. "Never thought about it, really. Anyway, name's Lloyd. What can I get you folks? You _are_ here to drink, I hope?"

"Actually, we were hoping—"

"Yes," I said, cutting in quickly and slapping three of the last ten silvers we had down on the sticky bar. "Yes, we are. And one for the brave boys over there, defending the village tonight," I added, raising my voice.

"Well, then…." Lloyd's expression warmed a little. "Very good."

I left him pulling the pints, and Alistair probing him for information—and the possibility of whatever he had stashed away in that cellar of his—while, Maethor padding at my heel, I slipped across to the far side of the tavern, and the hunched figure in the corner.

The sight of another elven face had struck a clear, ringing chord within me—a swell of recognition and relief that I hadn't felt in so long—and though he was unlike any elf I'd seen in the alienage, I couldn't deny the ache for contact, for reassurance… and for the possibility of news from home.

He was tall and thin, his face narrow, as if drawn tight over a long, straight nose and high cheekbones. Like me, he wore light leather armour that had seen better days, though his appeared to be tattered more through travel than any violent use, which I supposed was comforting. A long, dark braid hung down his back, and his fingers worried at the handle of his mug in a quick, repetitive tattoo.

"Not looking for company," he said, without turning, as I approached the table.

Undeterred, I crossed to the bench opposite him and sat down. Maethor flopped into an ungainly sprawl on the floor beside me, hind legs splayed and jaws open just wide enough for a hint of thick, wide tongue to loll between them.

The elf frowned. "I said—"

"Sorry," I said breathlessly. "I was hoping you might have some news from Denerim. Have you come from the north? It's just that I've heard nothing, nothing at all since I left, and I-I thought, seeing another elf here…."

"Yes?" He gave me a brief, dismissive glance. "Well, that's all that we have in common."

His coldness took me aback. Oh, I'd felt the sting of rejection at Ostagar, when the army camp's elven servants wouldn't meet my eye because I was wearing armour, but this… weren't we the same?

I clenched my jaw. Perhaps it was true. Everything people said about the alienage, and how we were better off behind our gates and walls.

"Sorry," I mumbled. "I just thought…."

"I'm not here to talk," he snapped. "I don't know anything about Denerim, and just because you're an elf doesn't…. I was told to— I mean… just leave me alone!"

His eyes widened, then winced to slits, and the corners of his mouth grew tight. I frowned.

"Told? What exactly were you 'told' to do?"

"Nothing," he said, far too quickly, and with the hint of a tremble in his voice. "Nobody told me to do anything… a-a-and just because you're a Grey Warden—"

"And what makes you think that?" I snapped.

The elf panicked. He was a terrible liar.

"I just… overheard it. That's all. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to get to the chantry before the sun goes down, and—"

He stood, hands on the table as he rose to his feet, but he was jumpier than a cat and far too slow to stop me grabbing his wrist. I twisted it ever so slightly, applying just enough pressure to cause him to think that sitting down again, nice and slowly, might be a good idea.

"I don't want trouble," he mumbled wretchedly. "Just… just leave me alone."

I pressed my thumb into the hollow of the elf's wrist, and leaned across the table.

"It'll be easier if you tell me what you're hiding," I murmured.

My thumb dug in deeper, and Maethor put his head gently on the man's knee. His lips didn't move, but the low, quiet growl, deep in his chest, was impossible to ignore.

"All right, all right!" The elf glanced down at the hound and then, wide-eyed and turning pale, looked back at me. "I'll tell you."

I let go of him, but made no motion to call the dog off. The elf rubbed his wrist and peered nervously at me.

"This is more than I bargained for," he muttered. "Look, everybody has to make a living, right? I… occasionally find myself hired by, uh, interested parties, to gather information."

"You're a spy," I said flatly.

He shrugged. "Usually, people don't notice an elf. No one cares what I overhear. I'm sure you understand."

I said nothing, and he let out a short sigh.

"They just paid me to watch the castle and send word if anything should change. That's all… but they never said anything about monsters! I haven't even been able to report anything since this started. I'm stuck, same as you, I swear."

I raised an eyebrow. "Who are 'they'? Who hired you?"

"A tall fellow… he never told me his name. He, uh, said he was working for Howe. Arl Rendon Howe. He's an important man… Teyrn Loghain's right hand. So, I didn't do anything wrong, did I?" he wheedled.

I barely heard the words. My gut had turned to lead, and I glanced at the bar, where Alistair was still talking to Lloyd. They seemed to be negotiating over something, and I guessed from the hushed tones and furtive looks that, whatever it was, Murdock had been right in his suspicions about the innkeeper.

"What…." I blinked, trying to get my thoughts in order. "What were you supposed to watch the castle for?"

"Just to report any changes, honest! But all I could send word about was the arl getting sick. After that, monsters started coming from the castle, and—"

"So you know how this happened?"

"I don't know anything about these creatures! I swear…." The elf looked down at Maethor, and licked his lips anxiously. "W-When the arl got sick, I was scared people might think I was involved. But it's not true. I was here to watch, that's all. Please…."

My lip curled. "How do I know you're not lying?"

"I'm telling the truth!"

His eyes widened, twin pools of dark fear that, just for a moment, chastened me. Did he really think I'd run him through if I didn't like what I heard? No one had ever looked at me like that before… and it wasn't a comfortable experience.

"I just thought I was serving the king," he whined. "Well, the regent. Just doing my duty… and making a bit of coin on the side. That's the truth. You have to believe me!"

I did, though I wasn't happy about it. I stared into his taut, angular face, the tense silence between us odd against the clink of mugs, the crackle of the fire, and all the other usual tavern hubbub, subdued as it was in this half-empty, half-doomed place. The seconds stretched out, like a moment drawn through time, and my head whirled with horrible possibilities.

_Loghain's right hand…._

I nodded grudgingly. "All right."

"It is the truth. I promise." The elf pressed his lips tightly together, and seemed contrite. "And… and I haven't been in Denerim in months. I'm sorry. All I've heard is about the teyrn taking over as regent. Nothing else. I'm from South Reach. I just want to get out of here, go home…."

In that moment, I didn't care. I didn't give a damn about this man, with all his fear and conflict that felt so familiar, like looking into a sodding mirror. I didn't _want_ to give a damn about the fact I knew that, in his place, I would probably have done the same thing.

"I think you should help defend Redcliffe tonight," I said.

"W-What?"

"Go see Murdock, help the militia. They need every able body they can get."

I glanced at Maethor and, right on cue, the hound rumbled again, head still on our new friend's knee. The elf swallowed heavily.

"A-All right. I'll do it. Thank you… I…. Would you please call your dog off?"

I winked at the mabari and he stepped back, allowing the elf to stand, somewhat shakily. He nodded at me and, nervousness scrawled all over him as obviously as the graffiti etched into the tavern's tables, stumbled his way out of the door.

I sighed and rested my head in my hands, elbows on the tabletop and fingers pushed deep into my hair. Why would Loghain want a spy in Redcliffe? What change could he have expected to see at the castle… unless he was _waiting_ for Arl Eamon to fall ill? But that wasn't possible… was it?

"Good news or bad news first?" Alistair asked cheerfully.

I looked up. I hadn't even heard him coming.

"Er…."

"The bad news is that someone drank your beer. And that we no longer have two coppers to rub together. On the bright side, our friend Lloyd turns out to have a cellar full of brandy and lamp oil, which Ser Perth should find very useful. They're taking it up to the barricades now." He glanced at the door. "So, who was he?"

I dragged myself to my feet. "Another volunteer for the militia. Well, he is now. We… we should catch up with the others."

Alistair nodded, and I think he knew I hadn't told him everything, though he didn't call me out. I wanted to tell him. I _should _tell him, I supposed. But perhaps not just yet.

After all, who knew if we'd even survive the night?


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's note: Happy New Year! Thanks, as ever, to readers and reviewers - as promised, here are the festive zombies. Mild caveat for violence in this chapter (no surprise), and happy holidays to all. ~ana_

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

* * *

We met up with Leliana and Morrigan, as promised, down by the lakeside. They'd found the house belonging to Dwyn, the dwarven trader, though apparently he refused to even open his door.

"He was really quite unreasonable," Leliana said disapprovingly. "I didn't think there was any need to be rude. Especially in front of a child."

I looked at the small boy, smut-faced and wearing ragged short trousers, upon whose shoulder she had her hand.

"Er. Yes," I said doubtfully. "Is this…?"

"Tell the nice lady your name," Leliana prompted. "Go on."

The child stared up at me, big-eyed, and looked as if he might wet himself.

"B-Bevin," he stammered.

I smiled. "Pleased to meet you, Bevin. My name's Merien. Are you going to go back to your sister now?"

He nodded sullenly, and stared at the ground. Leliana squeezed his shoulder.

"Indeed," she said, smiling serenely. "He has had quite enough of hiding, haven't you?"

"'s, m'm," the boy mumbled.

I had no idea where she'd found him, but the poor mite looked cowed and terrified. Small bits of straw clung to his hair, and his knees were grubby… henhouse, perhaps? In any case, I doubted that, for all Leliana's good intentions, he was much buoyed by yet another woman in robes telling him what to do.

"I am going to take Bevin back to the chantry, and make sure he doesn't run off again. He's promised. We decided your poor sister has enough to worry about, no?"

He glanced up nervously, the edges of tears clinging to his voice.

"Y-Yes, ma'am."

"All right." I nodded. "Um, well done. We'll see you there."

Morrigan tutted as Leliana began to lead the boy away, back up to the relative safety of stout walls and weeping women.

"Yes, yes. Lovely. Shall we next begin rescuing kittens from trees?"

"Look, the dusk's setting in," I said briskly. "Shall we just—"

"Oh, eager to get to the fighting, are we?"

I winced. "Hardly. Did you find out anything useful?"

She shrugged, feathers rustling at her bare shoulders and jewellery clinking gently. There were moments when, for all her claws and vinegar, Morrigan reminded me of nothing so much as an ill-tempered magpie. She turned her head away, glaring out towards the lake and offering me nothing but her pale, hard profile.

Lake Calenhad _did _present a beautiful view… or it should have done. I'd never seen such a vast stretch of water, and the low sun turned it to a rippling pool of molten gold. Flashes of light caught at the water, the sky huge and endless, wreathed with the deepening shapes of clouds and the whole basin framed by the steep walls of those red, hard cliffs. Small boats were moored or hauled up all along the shore, and the jetties were packed with barrels and spooled nets, testament to the normal course of business here, ruined by the madness that had spilled across it.

"These people are superstitious fools," Morrigan said coldly. Golden eyes scanned the horizon, and the suggestion of derision curved her delicate upper lip. "They speak of the dead returned to claim vengeance on the living, of a god wreaking punishment upon them."

"They think it's the Maker?" Alistair sounded incredulous. "Why would—"

"I do not know," she snapped. "Ask me why the ocean is wet, why don't you? What _is_ clear is that the Veil has been sundered in this place. There is something… powerful."

"Something?" I echoed.

Morrigan sighed irritably and turned to face me, with the air of someone explaining a simple truth to a young and rather dim child.

"_Something_ had to have _made_ them into corpses. No… spirits are always there, pushing against the boundaries of the Fade, seeking ways into this world."

"Demons, you mean," Alistair muttered darkly, giving her a look shadowed with distrust.

Morrigan sneered. "Call them what you will. They… hunger for it. The weaker ones may find a way through and, unable to distinguish between what is living and what simply _has_ lived, possess corpses; dead flesh which has no will to resist them."

I tried, and failed, to suppress a shiver. "We're going to be fighting demons?"

Her dark-painted lips twisted dismissively. "Of a kind. The stronger ones rarely bother with such pointless endeavours. They seek more sophisticated prey. But, still, the numbers the men here speak of are… concerning."

Her face had grown tense and sombre, and her eyes flickered with something not unlike apprehension. If Morrigan was worried, I had the horrible feeling the rest of us should be terrified.

"Blood magic," Alistair murmured, apparently to himself. "I'd bet on it."

For once, she didn't outright disagree. Her jaw tightened, and the suggestion of some barbed comment seemed to play at the corner of her mouth, but she said nothing. I frowned.

"Why—?"

"Call it a hunch," he said dryly, gazing steadily at Morrigan. "Summoning demons, causing untold death and destruction… all those things maleficarum tend to do."

I could have cut the air between them with my dagger. She glared, eyes two slits of ochre-yellow malice set like jasper chips into the swooping band of shadow that ran across her face. Even so, I felt a strange surge of sympathy for Morrigan. True, magic frightened me. _Her _magic, and the whole concept in general, though I knew I owed my life to it several times over; both Flemeth's healing, and her daughter's more violent arts. Yet, since the Wilds, she hadn't shirked a single fight—not the darkspawn, the bandits, or even Loghain's men. Any of those times, she could have disappeared as easily as mist, left us on our own… but she hadn't. Neither had I seen her use anything I would have called foul magic, though I supposed I wouldn't have known the difference anyway. Perhaps it _was_, or perhaps she had the arts of illusion and glamour down so well that she could hide any truth she chose.

Painfully aware of my ignorance, I didn't stand up for her. I had an inkling that apostate and maleficar might not always be the same thing, but my grasp on the matter was shaky, and I shied from the potential argument. Instead, I sighed wearily, and suggested we turn our attention back to the fast-approaching night, and everything that it would bring.

Alistair tried raising Dwyn, but no amount of banging on his door yielded anything more than a muffled 'sod off'.

I nodded to Morrigan. "I think, this time, fireballs are acceptable."

A small smile split her painted mouth and she stepped forward, fingers already flexing around a pinpoint of light that swelled and crackled in the palm of her hand. Alistair hopped hurriedly out of the way as she fed the pulsing flame into the lock and, with a loud crack, the door jarred off its hinges. I was grateful no one appeared to have noticed me jump at the noise.

Morrigan raised her staff in both hands and, rather elegantly, prodded the heavy wood. It creaked and, almost in slow motion, fell in.

It would have been comical, had we not found a heavily armed dwarven warrior and two very large, tattooed men standing inside. Understandably, perhaps, they didn't look pleased.

"Wonderful," the dwarf said acidly. "I hope you've got a damn good reason for busting down my door."

I looked at the splintered bits of doorframe, still fizzing with residual magical energy.

"Well," I said, hearing the manic, brittle cheerfulness in my tone, "we did _try_ the polite way."

Smart mouth, Father would have said. _You never learn_….

The dwarf glowered at me. I'd never met one of his kind face-to-face before. There used to be traders in the market in Denerim, and a few travellers from the west, but none that I'd really seen close up. It had been Father's opinion that they were not to be trusted—unscrupulous thieving bastards was his preferred turn of phrase—but he'd never said exactly why and, as I wasn't supposed to listen when the men were talking around the fire of an evening, I could hardly ask.

I looked down curiously at the dwarf. He was a clear foot shorter than me, which was a novelty in itself, and stocky, with his dark hair and beard bound into intricate braids. Small, dark eyes glittered beneath heavy, scowling brows, and his wide nose wrinkled as he sneered at my insolence.

"Hmph. So you did. Well, if we're being polite… the name's Dwyn. Pleased to meet you. Now get out."

One of the thugs at his side was elven. I hadn't noticed that before, registering just the strange, blocky tattoos that ran over both men's arms and faces, and the tell-tale bulges beneath their plain, workaday clothing, that spoke of weapons not so much concealed as held in readiness. We saw people like them back home, too; close to curfew, the night-crawlers always started to come out of the woodwork.

I glanced briefly at the elf. There was no glimmer of recognition there, and nor should there have been. Wherever his home had originally been, he'd cast it behind him even more emphatically than I had mine… and I wanted to be appalled at the sour little twist of judgemental anger that flared in me. Who was I, to make those assumptions? I dragged my gaze back to Dwyn, and shook my head.

"Murdock says he needs you for the militia."

"So what?" The dwarf snorted. "You're recruiting for him? I'll tell you what I told Murdock: I'm not risking my neck for this town."

The small fire burning in the stone hearth belched out a crackle. It was the only light set in the room, though there were plenty of brackets for candles along the walls. Behind me, lazy, dusty sunlight poured incongruously through the hole where the door should have been, and it outlined Dwyn and his heavies in coronae of milky gold.

Outside, distant footsteps scuffled on grit. Murdock was shouting to one of his men and, below us, I assumed, the lake was lapping steadily at the jetty's stilts.

"Isn't there any way we could change your mind?" Alistair asked. "He said you were a warrior. You could help these people. You could—"

"Get myself killed? Huh… fighting's the reason I left Orzammar. Why would I get involved with this? I'm a merchant now. Right, boys?"

The tattooed men smirked unpleasantly. "Yur," one grated. "Respectable an' everyfink."

"So you'll just stay shut up and here and watch them die?" Alistair demanded, his tone hardening as his patience evidently wore thin.

"No," Dwyn said evenly. "Usually, we bar the windows and sit it out in the back room. Don't see a thing."

His words bristled with a humour so dark it passed all the way through irony and came out somewhere in the region of cold, bitter truth. The same bone-clenching weariness clung to these men as permeated the rest of the village, but the dwarf was entitled to want to save his own skin… whether we liked it or not. I exhaled a tight breath of frustration.

"There's nothing we can say, then? Nothing we can offer?"

The elven heavy at Dwyn's shoulder gave me a look of open, unabashed appraisal, curled his lip, then glanced at Morrigan and loosed a grubby, throaty chuckle. I swear I felt the ice in her glare—it was a wonder the air itself didn't freeze over.

Dwyn folded his arms, the leather-gloved fingers of one hand drumming on his sleeve.

"I doubt it. Of course, if you _really_ wanted to make it worth my while…."

"We could talk to Bann Teagan," Alistair suggested, leaping on that first chink of hope. "Put in a good word for you. Think of the goodwill, the… possibilities for a man in your, er, position if, let's say, he were to cut the market licenses you pay for trading in Redcliffe?"

He was clutching at straws. Even the briefest glance around the house showed it was little lived-in, and I guessed the back room Dwyn had mentioned lay behind the heavy, locked door I could see past his shoulder… and it was probably stacked full of dubious wares. I very much doubted the dwarf took much notice of local bye-laws and trading rates, especially when the village—with all its outside smokehouses and loose-planked little jetties—had so many useful places to hide goods, and the cliffs no doubt led to a plethora of hidden paths. We had smugglers where I came from, too.

Sure enough, the dwarf's brow creased in amused derision. "Huh. Keep tryin', friend."

The thugs were growing restless, and the atmosphere in the cramped little house was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I glanced at Morrigan, uneasy with the firm grip she had on her staff, and the sharp, alert expression in her eyes, both so at odds with the calmness of her posture.

"All right, well… what about gold?" Alistair said, a hint of desperation clinging to the words. Dwyn might be an arsehole, but it didn't take a genius to see that, especially with his heavies on hand, he was an arsehole with enough muscle and experience to make a real difference when the sun went down. "Would _that_ convince you?"

Dwyn snorted. "Are you serious?"

For a moment, I was sure it was going to end badly, but Alistair stood his ground.

"Yes. Would it?"

"I won't even stick my head out my door for less than five sovereigns," the dwarf said obstinately. "Up front, mind you."

"Five…?" Alistair looked crestfallen. "W-We don't have that kind of coin. But these people are desperate. They need—"

"Here."

I'd barely known I was doing it; action without conscious thought, no proper decision…. My fingers had moved to the chain that hung around my neck, bearing both the pendant I'd received after my Joining, and the ring Nelaros had made for me. Two warm, smooth metal surfaces, alike in their terrible reminders of loss and burden. Sometimes, they seemed to weigh more than my whole pack.

I fumbled a bit as I unfastened the clasp, pulled the ring from the slim silver chain, and held it out to the trader.

"This is the only gold I have. Take it."

Dwyn appeared surprised, but he didn't resist as I dropped the ring into his hard, calloused palm. He peered at it briefly, then gave a short bark of laughter.

"Huh… you're kidding, right? This is just scraps of gilding. Barely got half the weight of a sovereign!"

Heat blazed in my cheeks, and I fought not to blink, not to admit to the embarrassment, the humiliation. Of course, I thought bitterly, it stood to reason, didn't it? Nothing of ours had any value outside the alienage. The hours Nelaros had worked, the months squirreling away enough material from the off-cuts at his father's forge… laughable.

I clenched my jaw, forcing the anger down. Best leave it buried deep, I told myself; I'd need it later.

"All right." I looked at Alistair, willing him to back me up. "Then we'll get the money from Bann Teagan. He'll see you paid… whatever you want."

It was a risk, but I imagined—hoped, rather—that Alistair's prior acquaintance with the bann would be enough to ensure he paid up and didn't make me a liar. He must have caught the meaning in my glance, because he nodded.

"Wh—? Oh. Yes. Absolutely."

Dwyn looked dubiously at us, turning Nelaros' ring thoughtfully in his fingers. The sneer dropped from his face and, from the quiet curiosity with which he stared at me, I suspected he'd been expecting some kind of protest about the value of the ring. Maybe it _was _worth more… I had no idea. There was a long silence, taut and full of things beneath its surface. Dwyn shook his head, his expression an unreadable façade of dwarven resilience, with whatever he really thought locked tight away beneath.

"All right. If Teagan gives me his word, you've got yourself a deal." He nodded gruffly, apparently oblivious to the heavies exchanging nervous glances above his head. "You're getting off easy, but I guess you're right. This town does need a hero… so long as you're going to be out there too when the sun goes down. I'm not fighting for a lost cause, you hear me?"

"We will," I promised. "And thank you."

Dwyn grunted and tossed the ring back to me. More shocked than anything, I nearly didn't catch it.

"Maybe do the thanking later… if we survive. And you can have your wedding ring back, girlie. Come on, boys."

They trudged out towards the square, and we followed. I could feel Alistair's gaze on the back of my neck, and I knew he was bursting to ask me something, but I didn't want to give him the opportunity. I didn't want to talk about anything.

_**~o~O~o~**_

A sharp chill underscored the growing dark as we made our way back up to the village square. It sent nerves coursing through me, the way the smell of frost sends horses skittish and jumpy, and I couldn't shake the undeniable sense of foreboding. Demons and walking corpses… it didn't seem real. Still, I reminded myself, up until that first encounter in the Korcari Wilds, I hadn't believed the darkspawn were more than stories.

Murdock was pleased to see us, his former brusqueness tempered with guarded optimism—not least, I suspected, because Owen had finished the repairs, and now Sten stood among the militiamen, towering above the ranks and looking like some sort of gigantic warhorse, in a patchwork of armour made from leather, chain, and odd ends of metal plate strung together across his massive frame. His expression suggested that the entire palaver was beneath his dignity, but I thought he looked impressive. I also thought about what the people of Lothering had locked him up for, and tried not to dwell on it. Marching with a murderer at my back had not made for an easy minute since we'd freed him, but neither had Sten given the slightest indication of being a blood-crazed psychopath… and we would be glad of him tonight, I felt sure.

Leliana was there too, although I almost didn't recognise her. The travel-stained Chantry robes were gone, replaced by grubby, patched leathers, much like those the militiamen wore, and I guessed a product of Owen's rapid repairs. Her hair bound back into a tight, rather severe ponytail, she had a longbow and a full quiver slung across her back, and the well-polished hilts of steel daggers glinted at her hips. She smiled and waved at us, but there was something altogether harder and sleeker about her, and it unnerved me.

We left Morrigan and Maethor outside the chantry, the pair of them looking out of place amid the flurrying activity of the militiamen, and Alistair and I slipped inside, buffeted by the ragged press of people now streaming into the building. A low hum echoed off the walls. It was the buzz of frightened chatter; tens of thin, over-eager voices. Children, mainly, and the women trying to quiet them. Too many white, pinched faces… too many who knew what to expect from tonight, I thought.

Alistair went to brief Bann Teagan, and secure the promise of payment for Dwyn, while I sought out Mother Hannah. I found her in a side chapel, helping an old man lay out bedrolls for himself, his wife, and a small pack of grandchildren… or perhaps they weren't all his. The little ones almost didn't look like humans; a great sprawling gaggle of them, skinny and bright-eyed. A burst of pensive nostalgia tugged at me and, when the priest looked up and, with a nod, began to pick her way across the crowded floor, I blinked rapidly and cleared my throat.

"Your Reverence." I bowed my head.

She nodded. The revered mother was an elderly woman, though age sat on her like a fine gauze rather than a sharp-edged burden, and it had certainly not dimmed the intensity of the grey eyes that now regarded me coolly.

"You are the other Warden," she observed.

"Um…." I supposed I was and, for the briefest moment, almost the last words Duncan had said to me echoed in my mind: _I expect you both to be worthy of that title_. I pulled my shoulders back and met the woman's eye. "Yes."

Mother Hannah smiled thinly. "You are of elven blood, and a stranger, yet you defend a home that is not your own. We are grateful for that."

I raised an eyebrow. "Is there a reason I shouldn't help?"

She put a slim, red-knuckled hand, traced with proud-standing veins, upon my arm, and guided me away from the side chapel and back into the main body of the chantry. The statuary—the carved figures of old kings and heroes, and the perfect, marble face of Andraste—peered silently down at the throngs of the dispossessed. I couldn't help wondering if the Maker really was watching.

"Many elves would say that humans would not do the same for them."

Mother Hannah's voice was low and gentle, but matter-of-fact… and she had a good point. We'd have been right in our assumption, as well, I suspected.

"Perhaps," I said diplomatically. "And perhaps I am a Grey Warden before all else."

She smiled again, wider this time, though it was still a careworn, tired expression.

"Perhaps," the priest echoed. "Now, what can I do to assist you, Warden? We have precious little, as you can see, but if I can offer any aid…."

I glanced around at the crowded ranks of villagers. Near the altar, I caught sight of Alistair talking earnestly with Bann Teagan. The nobleman appeared to be frowning—discussion of Dwyn's payment, I assumed—but then he shook his head, cracked a chary, disbelieving smile, and clapped Alistair on the shoulder. Agreement, it seemed… and the tail end of a gesture that, once, might have been the tousling of a muddy, boyish head. I turned back to the priest.

"Just how safe is the chantry?" I asked, lowering my voice.

Her lips thinned; as clear an answer as I might have had. "It is the sturdiest building in the village, but we have taken several nights of attacks. In truth, I… I do not know how much longer the walls will withstand it. Once the doors are locked, Murdock's men will barricade us in, and we must pray those defences hold."

I nodded. "Right. And, er… Ser Perth said he'd asked you for holy protection, for the knights? He seems a devout man."

The worry in Mother Hannah's face turned to mild irritation, and she tutted.

"Oh, that man…! I am sorry, but what Ser Perth asks is not in my power to grant. Prayer is one thing, but he seeks the assurance that his men have the Maker's protection in some tangible, physical sense. I cannot—"

My gaze fell to the silver symbol that hung from her neck: a circle, with a blazing flame at its heart. It was familiar. We'd had one on the wall at home; rough-carved from holly wood. When I was little, Mother taught me the comforting litany of prayers to say in front of it… and I couldn't quite remember when all that had slipped away.

Down both sides of the nave, people were beginning to light candles and tapers—small glimmers of hope to last through the night to come—and I fancied I could see the light reflected in the holy flame, bringing the polished surface to life.

"Morale is a powerful thing, Mother," I said softly. "As no doubt the Prophet found when she led her armies against the Imperium."

The priest narrowed her eyes. "Do not presume to bandy theology with me, Warden," she said, though her tone was not entirely hard. "I will not lie to those men, or tell them I have power I do not possess."

I inclined my head. "Of course not. But if you can help them, if you can give them a means to find strength in their own faith—"

She sighed tersely, and those thin fingers reached up to touch the shimmering flame. "Very well. I see your point. We… have a box of these symbols in the back. I shall have them sent to Ser Perth at once. And you, Warden? How fairs _your_ faith?"

It was a small, sharp barb, tacked onto the resignation of her words, and it took me by surprise.

"I…."

I truly didn't know. It was a nebulous, peculiar thing, of which I had not thought in a long time, though I supposed I should. I'd believed once, hadn't I? When I was younger, and Mother Boann's well-meaning outreaches had not seemed patronising, because all I saw were women with well-dressed hair and beautiful clothes, who smelled of flowers and hardly seemed like humans at all.

I wondered why I hadn't prayed since my conscription. Or since the arl's estate, since Ishal… since Lothering, and all the loss and devastation. If I couldn't manage to beg forgiveness for my own sins, surely I could manage to feel something for those who had lost everything.

Mother Hannah looked steadily at me with those calm grey eyes.

"Will you take a blessing?"

I nodded, suddenly humbled when I'd tried to be so clever, and bowed my head. The priest placed her palm upon my hair, and her voice was low and soft, yet the words rang with clarity they hadn't held for me in a long while.

"Blessed art thou who exists in the Maker's sight. Blessed art thou who seeks His forgiveness. Blessed art thou who seeks His return. Blessed is the Prophetess, His daughter, sacrificed to the holy flame. May the Chant reach the Maker's ears and tell Him of our contrition."

Behind my closed eyes, there was only darkness. There was no warm glow, no enveloping feeling of love or trust. Instead, I felt the edges of old wounds begin to open. I could smell the clean scent of firewood, and soap, and Father's old leather jerkin, and I remembered dogs barking and children laughing, and the long, long walk down to the water pump.

"In Andraste's name, I call upon the Maker to watch over His child and creation. Watch over her path, O Maker. Give her light in darkness."

I opened my eyes, and candle flames danced across my vision, burning the shadows and the memories away. I blinked, smiled my thanks at the priest, and assured her that we would do all we could for Redcliffe tonight.

"I do not doubt it," she said. "Maker watch over you."

"And over you," I murmured mechanically.

Alistair was waiting for me by the doors; they were preparing to close them, with heavy wooden bars ready to be hauled across. Dozens of pale, frightened faces watched us go. In the midst of them, Bann Teagan stood, the revered mother at his side, his face set with grim resolve.

We didn't speak as we made our way back out into the square. The others were waiting. Murdock's small band of men were in readiness, prepared to hold fast in the centre of the village, and all that remained was for us to get back up to the mill and take our place beside the knights.

After that, all we could do was wait.

_**~o~O~o~**_

The sunset should have been beautiful, especially from the top of the ridge. The whole sky was alight, burning in flames of golden orange and bruised with soft fingers of purple, the delicate fronds of lace-white cloud fanning out into trails that passed the sun's sinking, burnished face as gently as the breath of sighs. It melted behind the cliff, liquid gold painting the hard, red earth and catching against every glint of mica in the rock.

We waited. The air stank of oil and apprehension. The soaked barricades stood between us and the route down from the castle, and unlit torches wavered in the hands of militiamen shaking with fear.

Ser Perth and his knights stood at our back. Dwyn and his boys—duly paid up, it appeared—were there too, and altogether I supposed we made a pretty formidable force. The question was whether that would be enough. The sails of the windmill creaked in the still dusk; there wasn't enough wind to turn anything, much less shift the stubborn sense of foreboding that hung over us all like the smell of rotting meat.

I kept my eyes fixed on the narrow path ahead, and the blind corner that led up to the castle. It must have been cut from the cliff that way for a specific reason, once. Choke points, in case the villagers rose up against the arl, or insurance against the threat of foreign invasion or something. It was easy to forget that, until the years just before my birth, Ferelden had been an occupied land. Easy, too, for me to forget that all these great lords and their castles were for something more than show. Leliana had probably been right when she said there was blood in the bedrock of this place. Of course, that might as well be true of anywhere.

My thoughts were rambling, I told myself. Nerves. My fingers itched to draw my blade, just to feel the weight of something in my hand and know I wasn't defenceless… yet we had to pace ourselves. This would be no quick skirmish.

"Whatever happens," Alistair said quietly, "hold the line. All right?"

I glanced at him, and found his face intensely serious, an unsettling focus in his expression. I nodded.

"Good. The longer we can hold without having to fall back, the better. Ser Perth reckons there's a good few hours' burn time in the barricades… if that actually holds them up much."

"Hmm." I grimaced, not heartened by the thought of unstoppable walking dead that also happened to be on fire. "I think I'm sticking to the 'hack until it falls over' plan, myself."

He sniggered, and we drew a couple of odd looks from some of the knights. Not much to laugh about, really, I supposed. The last streaks of gold raked their way across the sky, the clouds shadowed into shelving banks of purple-blue, and night drawing close behind them.

It reminded me of that long, damp dusk at Ostagar, where the lines between the marshy dankness of the Wilds and unsettled sky were so blurred that nothing ever seemed certain. No clear division of night from day, light from dark… just the cold and the wet, and the mud. We'd been out in the forest for what felt like days, only to face the etched stones of the ancient temple, and all the mysteries within it. I almost shuddered at the memories, wrought as they were now into a strange, complex mix, packed tight away among things still too painful to unpick, too big to fully comprehend.

There should have been time for it. Duncan had meant there to be. A long, slow induction that would have equipped me for whatever the future yielded… not that even _he_ would necessarily have foreseen this. Undead pouring down the cliffside. A village in desperation, and Arl Eamon probably already dead… what would Duncan have done? I wondered briefly, and put the thoughts aside, knowing I might as easily ask what it was like to stand on the moon. I didn't think like him; I was no commander of men, no great tactician. I was just blindingly lucky to still be alive, and bloody well determined to keep it that way.

It was almost dark. I dragged in a deep lungful of air, and it was greasy with oil, and rough with the faint breath of sulphur.

They were coming.

The fog was the first sign of it, as Ser Perth had warned us. We could see it begin to billow at the top of the cliff, and the shout went up. The militia were running to their posts, and I could hear the sound of the last bars going down over the chantry doors, the heavy clang of iron and wood drifting up from the square below. To my right, Leliana was murmuring a quiet stream of prayer, and Ser Perth gave the order to light the barricades.

Two of the militiamen stumbled forwards, flint, tinder and torches at the ready. The oil went up quick enough to singe their eyebrows and, in seconds, the carefully stacked fires were roaring. I could see a thin band of dark rock above the dancing flames, heat haze making the air shimmer, and my vision was pricked by the light. Too easy for my elven eyes to catch at the pattern of the flames, and too hard to pierce the shadows so far beyond them. I hated the shadows.

Still, we waited. It was unbearable, interminable… every time I thought I saw something, and nothing came. The darkness, the fog, the indescribable tension—it seemed it would never end, until Leliana drew her bow, the first to sight something moving at the top of the path.

"Here they come!" she cried, loosing an arrow.

I didn't even see where it hit. I expected whatever she'd struck to cry out, but heard nothing beyond a faint thud, and the suggestion of something scrabbling on the gritty slope.

Later, I would realise that made sense. They were already dead. What need did these creatures have of rattling, ugly breaths, of roars or screams? The things that inhabited the flesh-shells were mostly already mad, too far gone to understand the power of speech or communication, or to have forethought enough to terrify us with it.

Nevertheless, there would be something about the silent ranks of walking corpses that would stay with me for a very long time. Longer, even, than the stench of the damn things.

The first wave of them came out of the fog in a strange, shambling gait, too awkward to seem remotely human, but too fast to leave any doubt over their intent. Some of them walked—as far as the term could be applied—on the edges of their feet, or on their ankles, the usual rules of anatomy disregarded by whatever was inside them. The arms and necks of many were disjointed, the angles all wrong… but all of them had once been people. That was far more obvious—more chillingly evident—than I had hoped it would be, and I was not prepared.

There were men and boys, women… even a few elves, probably once servants at the castle. What clothes they had hung in bloody tatters, and their flesh was little better. Skin and hair had begun to peel from a few, unseeing eyes rotting in their sockets and foul, leaking mouths held slack, giving the impression of creatures that found their way by scent, like blind pups butting their way towards the warmth of a bitch's teat.

All around, steel sang as weapons were drawn. I had a blade in each fist, but I felt far less comforted by the fact than I'd hoped I would. Leliana and the others armed with bows loosed the first assault, and a few of the creatures went down, but they didn't stay there. They clambered up again, slow but unstoppable, and they just kept coming, faster than it seemed dead flesh should ever be able to move. It had been just moments since I had my first glimpse of them through the fog, yet they were already at the first barricade, and I could make out the shapes of more pressing on behind.

The creatures—because it was so much more preferable to think of them like that than to accept the fact that, once, they'd had names and families—definitely burned… but the fire barely seemed to slow them, and they certainly didn't treat it as more than an inconvenience. They just kept coming, pushing on with dead hands outstretched, some clutching weapons and others armed only with the singular determination of destruction. The smell of filthy, rotting flesh filled the air—almost as bad as the stench of darkspawn, I thought, although a different flavour of corruption—and it was tinged with the vile stench of charred fat and meat, enough to turn the strongest stomach.

Sten gave a warcry in his own tongue, and it broke the silence and the tension. Everything shattered around me. The shadows and the leaping flames, the knights' burnished armour and their holy symbols, and the ungainly, terrifying ranks of undead all became part of a mad, kaleidoscopic vision through which I was running, my mind a clear, silver strand floating somewhere high above my body.

We charged, meeting the corpses as they lurched through the fire, and ending them as thoroughly as blades could allow. It was messy, gruesome work, especially after the barricades had slowed them. I encountered body after body, furnaces of hot, foul breath burning from blistered mouths, eyes like shelled boiled eggs and skin singed through to red, glistening muscle over which no pulse beat, and no blood flowed. After a while, the stench got so far down the back of my throat that I stopped retching… until the little boy with maggots where his tongue should have been.

I wanted to close my eyes, to stop seeing the differences in their faces, the different heights and shapes, and just hack blindly until it was over—and, if there truly was a Maker, and He had any mercy whatsoever, it had to be over soon—but I learned to be alert. Just not quickly enough, as it happened.

The thing that lurched out of the fire towards me had once been a tall, strong, young man… probably one of those who'd died trying to defend his village, not that it was possible to tell for sure now. The hair had all been burned from his head, only the last scraps of toughened leather armour clinging to his body. He swung at me with his right arm, and I parried, the force of the blow jarring my shoulder and almost dislodging my footing. I brought my dagger back, readying a strike under his ribs, the blade of my sword still buried in dead, mottled flesh. The unblinking, slack-mouthed corpse stared down at me, and then slammed his left fist into the side of my head.

"Watch it!"

Alistair's voice came through a muffled fog as I pitched to the ground, for the first time truly understanding the full meaning of the phrase 'dead weight'. My vision was blurred, the fractured shards of torchlight piercing unnatural pulses of bright blue and purple that burst in front of my eyes. I rolled, instinctively, the world still spinning above me in a dull roar, and the corpse that had sent me flying hit the gritty earth beside me… minus its head.

I hauled myself up on hands and knees, spat, and felt the distinct wobble of a loose tooth. The metallic taste of blood furred my tongue, and I could feel a wet trickle making its way down the side of my head.

"Sod," I muttered, pulling my sword out of the now rather-more-dead undead, and giving the thing a hard kick on my way to scrambling up.

I glanced fuzzily at Alistair. Bloodied and panting, shield lacquered with gore and soot streaking his face, he nodded. I returned the gesture, assuring him I was all right, and we parted ways again. I lost sight of him somewhere in the next wave of the assault, and there was nothing but the firelight glancing off the knights' bright armour, and the perpetual thuds, crunches and raw, graunching sounds of steel on flesh. It was endless; a vital, dark song that wound itself so deeply into my blood that, when the next lull in the attack came, I was shaking so much I could hardly stand. It wasn't fear. Well, not completely. It was… like nothing I'd ever experienced.

I'd known bloodlust—the true desire to cause pain and to revel in the power to inflict it, and to end the life of another being—and, that day that felt a hundred years ago, back in the arl of Denerim's estate, I had tasted its bitter, addictive fruit. At Ostagar, I'd fought in arms for the first time and learned what it was like to drive myself beyond what I thought I could do, to push beyond everything in the blind determination to survive. This was different. I was part of a team, and we had a goal, a strategy against an enemy that was identifiable, and knowledge we could _use_…. It was an edge I was not accustomed to having.

On the right flank, Maethor stood with two of Ser Perth's knights, ready to mop up anything that got around the barricades. The mabari's short brindled coat was filthy, though most of the blood didn't seem to be his. His lips were pulled back, full-blown snarls and barks breaking from deep within the heavy body, those massive paws skittering on the earth as he all but danced in place, flanks shivering with excitement.

To the other side of the barricade, Morrigan was set well apart from the rest of the ranged attack; a whirlwind of sparks and violence, her black iron staff rimed with ice and her pale skin almost glowing in the darkness. She sent bolt after bolt into the encroaching lines, and though the things we fought had no capacity for fear, she terrified me.

"Maker's breath!" exclaimed Leliana, somewhere behind my left shoulder. "How many more of them can there be?"

I turned, shaking my head and feeling the drying blood pull at my hairline.

"Don't know," I said with a wince. "How many have we…?"

She wrinkled her nose, and I glanced at the piles of hacked, mutilated bodies. Hard to count kills when it was difficult enough to work out how many bits belonged to the same corpse.

Dwyn's boys had started to help the knights shift the… remains, I supposed we should call them. It was undignified, but the majority got thrown onto the barricades or heaped up as makeshift defences in their own right. The worst part of it was that I didn't even manage to feel horrified. I just sheathed my blades and pitched in, grabbing whatever became available—leg, arm, half-shelled head or bit of torso—then lifting and throwing as if we were doing no more than stacking firewood.

Still, the flames burned on. The extra supplies Alistair had commandeered from Lloyd's cellar, combined with lumber cannibalised from some of the abandoned shops and cottages, extended the life of the barricades considerably. I couldn't even smell the stink of oil and burnt flesh anymore, but then I couldn't smell anything.

"A-Are they still up there?" one of the militiamen asked in a tense whisper.

"Maybe it's… stopped," another said, his voice pitched high with frail, brittle hope. "Maybe there aren't any more."

To my right, Dwyn grunted and spat onto the bloody earth. "Fat chance of that. They're there, all right. Can't you smell 'em?"

Murmurs of assent ran through the men. I said nothing. After tonight, I very much doubted I'd ever be able to use my nose for anything but sneezing.

But, we were back to the waiting. Cold, uncomfortable, unbearable waiting. I clenched and unclenched my hands, trying to stop the shaking. My legs wanted to wobble and twitch, so I took to pacing to keep them steady… and myself as calm as I could manage. Wounds were bandaged, though we'd been lucky, and it seemed no one was seriously hurt. A few of Ser Perth's knights kissed their holy amulets and offered thanks to Andraste and the Maker.

When the next wave came, we were tired, but ready.

Stars pricked the velvet night with cold, violent clarity, bidding to outshine the fat, pitted quarter of the moon. The barricades were burning with thick, greasy flames, belching soot into the chilly air. The creatures came in fewer numbers now, knots and gaggles instead of the massed ranks that had hit at first.

Morrigan fell back to the rear of the group, looking sweaty and exhausted. Knowing nothing of magic or the wielding of it, I didn't understand how much the assault had taken out of her, and there was no time to stop and ask.

The creatures kept coming. I was numb, and the world was grey and muffled. I saw flesh, not faces, and I worked my way through body after body, their weight and their stink pressing in on me until there was nothing left to feel but the pounding of blood and the rough, jagged resistance of steel dragging through meat.

The worst of them was a young woman—or something that had once been one—tottering down the cliff path, half-rotted, in the remnants of a white gown. Clumps of blonde hair hung raggedly from what was left of her head, and putrid skin peeled from her breasts and arms, the flesh sloughed away from her ribcage to reveal the white glare of bone. She raised her arms and—caught between the fire and the pale dance of the moonlight—there was something hypnotic and terrifying about her. She swayed towards us, dead eyes rotted to black pits in the remains of a mottled face, and she held more power than the entire first rush of the corpses combined.

Sten cleaved her in two with one enormous blow… not that there was much of her to resist his sword. I saw one of the knights drop to his knees and clasp his hands in prayer, but then Leliana distracted me, darting across the path to clamber up onto the rock, peering up towards the castle.

The thick, sulphurous fog still wreathed the ground, adding yet another layer of filth and stink to the ridge, and making it near impossible to see what was up there. She leaned forwards, bow in her hand, a delicate figure painted in outlandish, flickering shadows, like some pagan goddess of war. That she was more than a simple Chantry sister had been evident from the start, but that night I saw just how much lay hidden beneath her veneer of cheerful, pious humility.

She jumped lightly down from the rock, shaking her head. The soot-streaked flame of her hair swished emphatically, and those ice-blue eyes were narrowed into shrewd, suspicious slits.

"I can't see anything. It looks like there are no more up there, but… they could be waiting. How long is it before dawn?"

"Too long for it to be this quiet," Ser Perth said grimly. "We must not grow complacent."

He ordered his men to clear more of the bodies, and I slipped back to see Morrigan. She still looked pale, weary—drained, I supposed was the word—though she clearly felt well enough to savage me for taking the trouble to enquire after her health.

"Do I bother you with pointless questions?" she snapped. "What do you think, that magic comes at no cost? That my energy is as boundless as your ignorance?"

She gripped her staff tightly as she rose to her feet, scowling imperiously at me as if I couldn't see how heavily she was leaning on the thing… or how that ample, elegantly framed bosom of hers was rising and falling to the strained rhythm of ragged, painful breaths. I held her gaze, watching the barricades' fires dance on those amber discs and, just for once, Morrigan was the one to look away first.

"I… will be fine," she muttered gracelessly. "Just let me catch my breath."

I nodded, and I would have asked more irritating questions, but the cry went up as another knot of corpses shambled down towards us. Sten was at the front of the line, tackling them magnificently. Owen had fitted him out with a greatsword that would have been enormous on most humans—another of those things I'd barely seen outside of storybooks, and the heroic tales of knights in tournaments and battles—and, though he certainly didn't dwarf the blade, the qunari wielded it with impressive ease. There was barely anything left for the rest of us to mop up, not that I really minded.

The respite didn't last long. Just as we were being drawn back into committing ourselves to the latest wave of the assault, shouts and alarms broke out below, and one of Murdock's militiamen came pelting up the path behind us.

"They're attacking from the lake!" he yelled, gasping for breath. "They're almost at the barricades! Quick, we need help!"

There was a horrible moment of indecision, ripped through with the twang and hiss of arrows flying, and the jumbled mess of fighting.

"Go!" Ser Perth yelled. "We have the path!"

Alistair nodded and barked orders. Leliana and two other archers were to fall back to the midsection of the ridge; Ser Perth's men would hold their position with Dwyn and his boys, and the rest of us would plunge to Murdock's aid. I didn't think, just reacted, water-weak legs scrambling beneath me as we ran down the ridge, greeted by the sight of the undead swarming in on the village square. There were dozens of them; that same jerky, unnatural gait, those broken, misshapen bodies… the militia had already fallen back to protect the chantry, and the taint of desperation soured the air.

A rain of arrows flew over us, but served only to slow the creatures down. In the centre of the square, opposite the chantry doors, a huge bonfire burned. Flanked by the barricades it was one great, towering pyre of flame, casting a guttering, uneven light into the darkness… and providing, in its own way, an undeniable gesture of defiance.

Sten ran forwards, raging like some wild beast, and scythed through three of the corpses in a single stroke, severing limbs and heads like ears of corn. I should have been revolted. It should have been frightening, but I'd gone past that. I was wrapped in the hard, mouldering heart of something overwhelming and all-consuming, and I followed him with my weapons drawn and a wordless, furious warcry wrenched from my throat.

We dived headlong into the fray. It was chaos; bloody, dark, rampant chaos. No one had expected the creatures to come the way they had… but then they'd never been held back so effectively at the ridge before. It was impossible to know whether it was some kind of tactical decision on their part, or the mindless surging of insects, intent of swarming through any available chink. There was hardly an opportunity to discuss it rationally.

Morrigan let loose a tremendous blast of magical energy that knocked a dozen of the creatures to the ground—and a goodly number of the militiamen—and we set about the same grisly, methodical business as before.

It was worse down here. There were too many hidden corners, too many ways for the things to come. Over and over again, we thought we had them pushed back, only for some putrid, ravening corpse to lunge at us from behind a wall. I started to think they were coming out of the lake itself—who knew how many had drowned in there over the centuries?—but there was little room for fantasy with so much fighting at close quarters.

I took a bad blow to my shoulder; felt the armour part company and the blood start to flow. Pain cinched my left arm tight to my body, left me one-handed and awkward. The thing that faced me had once been a dark-skinned human, the remnants of black curls still clinging to his ravaged scalp. The shadows sculpted unimaginable horrors into the crevasses of his dead flesh. Hard, cold fingers dug at my skin, ripping hanks of my hair out at the root as unseeing eyes rolled in a rotten skull. Crusted, dry blood, too old to be from this battle, caked the corpse's face, and I could have sworn it sought not just to wrest the life from me, but to feast on whatever was left behind. Yellow, stained teeth snarled and snapped, and the sickly, putrid mockery of breath—the vapours of death, not life—washed over me.

I yelled as I hit the ground, pulled my legs up and, sticking my feet into the creature's middle, used the bulk of its weight to roll it over my head and towards the large bonfire in the middle of the square. The flames caught surprisingly quickly and, as cinders and sparks leapt into the cold air, the corpse lumbered back out of the fire, still burning. One of Murdock's men, a man with a grey beard and pouchy, dark eyes, pushed out of the melee behind the corpse and clobbered it across the back of the head with his mace. It spun, attacked… and no matter how many times I saw it, I couldn't get used to the terrible ease with which the things could inflict such horrible damage. The man's arm was almost pulled from its socket and, as he crumpled to the dirt, screaming, the creature reached down, like it could just pluck the flesh from his face. Perhaps it could. I didn't give it the opportunity, though severing the head from the creature's shoulders was a hard, unforgiving endeavour, and I ended up clinging on to its back as it bucked in circles, trying to throw me off. The last traces of dying flames burned my leg, though I barely felt it.

Finally, the deed done, the corpse pitched to the ground and I followed suit, blade, hands and most of the rest of me befouled with the grease and vileness of rotten flesh. The militiaman lay a foot or so away, a rivulet of blood tracking its way into his beard. He turned his face to me, his cheeks sweat-damp and trembling. I crawled over, my mouth full of grit and dust and my head ringing. He needed healing; badly dislocated arm, wounds to his head and one leg. A burst of ice lit up the night above me and—with a visceral, shattering thud—I heard a shield smash into a frozen corpse, probably rendering it as effectively decapitated as any sword could. I yelled for Morrigan, not sure she could even hear me, and not sure I could get to my feet again yet.

"Help's coming," I said to the militiaman, my hand on the thick leather that covered his rapidly panting chest.

Or, at least, I _tried_ to say it. I suspect, if the man was aware of anything at all, it was a wide-eyed elf gibbering at him with the slurred words of an early concussion. Still, a whirl of feathers and black cloth heralded Morrigan kneeling beside me, her staff biting into the thick, grimy dust.

"What?"

I turned my head, and found those golden eyes unnaturally bright with what I could only think of as hunger. The witch's pale face was a twisted gasp, her lips curled and baring neat, white teeth.

"Help him," I shouted, pointing to the fallen man. His breathing was growing ever more shallow. "He needs healing!"

The curled lips bent into a sneer, and her gaze hardened. "I am no healer! You know this. I…."

"Please!"

Had there been more time, more space to breathe, I'd have realised the look that crossed Morrigan's face in that briefest of seconds was one of nervous indecision. She rarely did anything in which she was not confident of success and, later, I would understand why.

She looked away abruptly, and laid her hand on the man's pallid head. Another of the corpses broke through between the barricades and, seizing my dagger, I staggered to my feet and lurched towards it, neither waiting to thank her or to judge her success. I heard the militiaman screaming, but by the time I'd helped take down the interlopers that threatened the line, it had stopped and—as I could plainly see—he was rising to his feet, helped by Morrigan and Tomas, the lad who'd first met us on the bridge.

I shot Morrigan a bone-weary but sincere nod of gratitude. She could do more than she knew, I remember thinking… which turned out to be naivety of the worst order. She just shook her head, then raised that black iron staff and loosed a furious flare of ice towards the western side of the barricade, stopping another two undead in their tracks, and allowing Sten to bash them into oblivion with his greatsword. I winced and looked away. Frozen chunks of flesh littered the ground, and I could only imagine what they'd be like when they thawed.

The numbers dwindled after the first hour or so. I had privately decided that, whatever evil this was, there couldn't be a single dead body left at the bottom of the lake, or in any graveyard or paupers' field for a hundred miles. We'd cut our way through so many, I was sure I'd see nothing else when I closed my eyes… probably not for the rest of my life. The moon had passed its way across the sky; it couldn't be that long until dawn. As breaths were caught and wounds were quickly, temporarily bandaged, I cherished the wisp of a memory from home. Mother used to tell a story about the moon and her lover: a mortal man who had been cursed by a magister, and doomed to wander eternally without rest. The moon loved him so that she wrought herself a chariot of stars, and followed him every night, though she could never catch him. I couldn't remember how it ended. Not well, I assumed. Stories never seemed to.

When the creatures came again, they appeared to be warier. They lingered on the gangways, held back at the corners of the streets and alleys that ran between the square and the lake's edge. It was as if they were taunting us. Hisses and groans left them like catcalls, and their oddly angled arms jerked, bodies twitching in horrible, impatient pulses. A few of the militiamen, fired up and not thinking, started to run out into the network of blind turns and dark shadows, but Alistair was out at the front of the line, yelling at them to hold their positions. Murdock weighed in behind him, threatening to cut the balls off the first man who moved, and that seemed to get their attention.

It was a tense, ugly stand-off, with Leliana, Morrigan, and the rest of those armed for ranged combat sending short volleys across the dirt. They didn't do much except apparently enrage the creatures and, when they finally did come blundering towards us, they crashed against the barricades with such ferocity that I thought we'd all be dead by morning.

After that, there was one more wave, light in numbers but as horrendous as anything that had gone before. We were tired, numb… and determined. They fell as the others had fallen, and the darkness seemed to be fading. The chill of night was giving way to the dampness of a coming dawn, and the shadows paled against the outlines of trees and rooftops. Up on the ridge, I could make out the flames of torches, and the black shapes of Ser Perth and his men.

"It's over," one of the men said, his voice cracking with disbelief, and he was rapidly shushed.

"Ain't over 'til sun-up," someone else said, and every pair of eyes seemed to turn to the east.

We stared for what felt like hours. Nothing. The darkness still wreathed the village and, though no more corpses came, the waiting was unbearable until finally, as we watched, the sun began to rise beyond the silvery horizon, breaking the surface of the lake into a thousand glittering planes.

A worn, ragged cheer went up from the militamen, and I dropped to my knees, watching the tentative veins of pink thread through the bruised, purple-blue underbelly of cloud. At that moment, it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

The coolness of the morning bathed my face, damp air breathing new life into aching, stale lungs. We were all still here, still alive… we'd done it.

It was the first victory I'd ever known.


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's note: I bring updates! Sorry it's been so long. Effusive thanks to those who've been reading, reviewing, favouriting and so forth - knowing people are actually reading and enjoying this story has been getting me through some... stuff. Here's to 2011 being a less crappy year for those who need it. ;-) _**

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**CHAPTER NINE**

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The sense of celebration in the village was palpable. Relief hung thick, like garlands of blossom, and if the people hadn't been so damn tired, I'd have bet they'd have been dancing in the streets.

Murdock sent a couple of men to scout the perimeters, making sure everything was clear, and we set once again to the grim business of clearing the bodies before he banged on the chantry doors and declared it was safe.

They came out hesitantly, mothers holding their children close to them, trying to shield their eyes from the carnage. I couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be in there all night, listening to the sounds of battle, only to walk out and face piles of dismembered corpses, each one once a friend or neighbour. We'd done our best to keep them out of the way—the heads, at least—but there would still be the grisly business of identifying and naming the dead. I was glad I wouldn't have to be a part of it.

We stood back and let the villagers stumble out into the sunlight. I watched women fling themselves at their men, damp with tears of relief and gratitude. Even Murdock cracked a smile, buried somewhere under the expansive hugs of a broad, determined-looking wife, and four young daughters.

I glanced at my companions, battle-weary and filthy as we were. It was still so hard to believe we'd lived through the night… that we'd worked together, and prevailed. Leliana looked exhausted, though she smiled as she watched the villagers' tender scenes of reunion. Morrigan appeared oblivious to them. Sitting on the chantry's steps, hands loosely linked around the neck of her staff, she bore that waxy, vacant look that worried me… although even implacable, impassive Sten seemed a little bowed by fatigue, and I told myself that was all it was. We were _all _tired.

Maethor was stretched out on the dirt at my feet, apparently content to grab a quick doze, and I envied the canine ease with which he slipped from moment to moment. Alistair looked as tired as I felt, and just as in need of a damn good wash. He glanced at me, and his grin was lop-sided and threadbare, soot and dried blood still streaking his forehead.

It was embarrassing, I suppose, to realise how little we belonged there. In amongst all those people, so pleased to be alive and torn between gratitude for their survival, and grief at what they'd lost, we were outsiders, and there was something awkward about standing there, suddenly purposeless and bereft.

It didn't last. The militiaman with the grey beard disengaged himself from the crowd and, swaying slightly, came over to shake my hand. He had a white-haired woman in a green shawl and a young man on crutches with him. The lad barely looked more than fifteen but, judging by the bloody mass of bandages swathing his left leg, I guessed he'd already seen some action over the past week.

"Thank you, Warden," the militiaman said, pumping my hand vigorously before he turned to the boy. "You see, Rethyn? These are the people who saved us… an' saved your pa. You thank 'em proper."

"Um, there's really no—" I began, but it was useless.

There were effusive thanks, rounds of back-slapping and hand-shaking, and the ebullient sense of relief coiled everywhere, tugging us all into its wake. Morrigan sneered, clearly uncomfortable with the attention, which surprised me, though I couldn't blame her.

Ser Perth's men, Dwyn and his heavies, and the others who'd made their stand at the ridge all limped down into the square, tired but satisfied. I even recognised the elf from the tavern, wearing mismatched ends of armour and looking rather stunned. Somehow, my companions and I found ourselves backed up onto the steps of the chantry, with dozens of eager, exhausted faces staring up at us… and it got worse when Bann Teagan mounted a barrel and, arms outstretched, called for quiet from the gathered masses.

"Dawn arrives, my friends," he called, spreading out his hands to encompass the whole square, "and all of us remain. We are victorious!"

He raised a clenched fist, and a cheer went up; weary and a bit ragged, but all the more fervent for it. I squirmed under the scrutiny of so many people and looked to my left, meaning to step back and let Alistair—as both the senior Warden, and the one who was responsible for coordinating the village's defence—take the credit that Teagan so obviously wanted to give, but he wasn't there. At that moment, an elbow jabbed me in the small of the back, shoving me forwards and rather unwillingly into the spotlight.

I would, I decided, make him pay for that one.

Without breaking the rhythm of his speech, Bann Teagan jumped down from his impromptu plinth and put his hand on my shoulder. The wound beneath my battered armour was still open and angry, and I gritted my teeth.

"It is these good folk you see beside me that we have to thank for our lives today," the bann said brightly, gesturing to my ragtag company. "Without their heroism, surely we would all have perished."

Another cheer erupted from the assemblage, and Teagan turned to me, his face solemn and his well-spoken words ringing out across the square with terrible, awful clarity.

"The Maker truly smiled on us when he sent you here, in our darkest hour. Dear lady, I bow to you."

And he did. Bended knee and everything. I didn't know where to put myself.

An audible intake of breath sounded from the crowd, and then it was swallowed in cheers and applause. Bann Teagan straightened up, beaming widely, and beckoned to a boy I now saw hanging back by the chantry doors. He seemed breathless, and carried a bundle of oiled cloth, which Teagan took from him and unwrapped, revealing a large, heavy steel helmet. It glimmered dully in the early morning sun, and the light caught on the intricately engraved patterns that ran over the brow and nosepiece of the thing. I'd never seen armour like it. As the bann held it aloft, I could see it had wings, like some immense, ancient bird. It was old, that much was clear; as if the patina of years was pressed into the gleaming metal.

The people knew what it meant. It was a symbol they understood. They clapped; a brisk, intense beat that stormed us over us, and took the breath from my body. Teagan's voice rose above it, and then he was holding the helmet out to me, like a priest extending a blessing.

"Allow me to offer you this: the helm of Ser Ferris the Red, my great-uncle and hero of Ferelden. He would approve passing it to one so worthy."

A symbol, a ritual… a ceremony. The villagers had to see it. Tired, bloody and beaten, they needed this. I could see all of that written in the bann's angular face as he made a great show of handing the helm to me, and I couldn't do anything but bow in return, and humbly accept a gift more magnificent—and a great deal heavier—than I could possibly use.

I managed some short string of words about how honoured we were, how the battle had been won on the bravery of the people of Redcliffe, and how I'd felt privileged to fight beside them, and then I was only too glad to hand over to Mother Hannah. The priest led a brief prayer for those who had fallen in the course of the attacks, and for the souls of those whose bodies had been so evilly corrupted, and then the talk fell to the tasks ahead, and to the needs of the men who'd been up all night, and required food, drink and bandages… possibly not in that order.

She dealt with them efficiently, I noticed. She had a kindly firmness, directing the sisters to help here, or insist there, with no more than a gentle wave of her hand. Her voice was an even, undeniable constant that, I suspected, had run through the fabric of life here for more years than most of these people could remember, and that was comforting. Little by little, then, normality would return to Redcliffe, and it would be women like Mother Hannah who brought it. Unless the corpses came back at nightfall, of course. I wanted to push those thoughts away, and let nothing sour the taste of the victory we'd won here, but my head was too foggy to cling on to one strand of anything for long.

I think I was swaying a bit as we moved off the chantry's steps, clearing the way for the traffic of people who needed aid, rest, and time to deal with the mess that was left of their homes. At first, I was barely aware of Bann Teagan speaking—lower this time, no longer an address to an eager crowd—and it took a moment before I realised he was talking to me… to _us_.

"We truly cannot thank you all enough," he said.

I glanced up, and then back at the tattered, exhausted faces behind me. Sten grunted. I hadn't forgotten how prepared he'd been to leave this place defenceless, considering it an irrelevance, a lost cause… or how I'd couched my argument in terms of winning allies, banking on the possible support of the arl, if he still lived. Did that really make us heroes? I wasn't so sure, and I blinked blearily at the bann.

"Er…."

"These people owe you their lives," Teagan went on, smiling beneficently at the drabs of the crowd now thinning out, mostly in search of hot food and somewhere to lie down. "They will not forget what you have done here. Nor shall I."

The look of genuine affection in his face as he gazed at those people surprised me. I'd grown up so far removed from how Denerim was actually run—what the nobility were actually _for_, when we rarely saw any authority beyond the city guard—that I was nonplussed. The villagers here knew this man, and trusted him, though he held a title and wore clothes worth more than they'd make in a year. It was… odd, to me. Then again, wavering as I was on the ghostly twin surfs of sapped adrenaline and fatigue, I'd long passed the point of trying to make sense of anything.

"They deserve their celebration," Teagan said, turning back to us with a sober look in his eyes.

That keen blue gaze slipped past my shoulder and sought out Alistair, and I gathered from the hint of beseeching that crept into the bann's voice that we were not going to be allowed much rest.

"You have helped us immeasurably, but there is still more to be done. Mother Hannah will see you cleaned up and provisioned, but I must ask this—"

"You want to get into the castle." Alistair nodded. "While… whatever's up there is weak, or distracted?"

Teagan's jaw tightened, a dark determination shadowing his face. "Yes. I have a plan, but… I fear we must act quickly. Meet me at the mill, and I shall explain."

And that was it. With a curt incline of the head, the bann took his leave, and I found myself looking dubiously at Alistair. He sighed, weariness inscribed in the slump of his shoulders and the dark rings beneath his eyes.

"Well," he said, "if Arl Eamon's still alive…."

I nodded grimly and glanced at the others. "Look, if any of you would rather stay here, then—"

Sten snorted. "Is that not defeating the purpose of all we fought for?"

Maethor barked, apparently in agreement, and Leliana gave me a small, tired smile.

"You said yourself that we should take any chance to get into the castle."

I was pretty certain that wasn't quite what I'd said, but she made it sound like encouragement, and I was prepared to forgive her for twisting my words.

"Ugh, very well." Morrigan rose to her feet, lip curled sullenly. "If you insist. Although, I confess, I do have a wonder to see what is behind this. It could prove… interesting."

Alistair grimaced. "By 'interesting', I imagine you mean incredibly horrible and gruesome? That is your sort of thing, after all."

"It may have escaped your notice," she sniped, "for, naturally, many things _do_, but this world is not all rainbows and sunshine."

"Not when you're around, no."

Well, at least something was back to normal.

_**~o~O~o~**_

People fussed around us in the chantry. It was… awkward. There wasn't time, space, or facilities for much beyond a quick rub-down with a damp rag, a few sips of waters, and the most rudimentary healing. Supplies were scarce, and there were others in greater need than we. Still, the villagers were in good spirits; I even heard someone saying Lloyd had come out of his cellar, and was going to open the tavern.

We made our way back up to the ridge, where we found Bann Teagan, Ser Perth, and a couple of the knights standing in the shadow of the mill. The outline of the castle was clearly visible through the morning mist, grey-shrouded and blurred, like the sleeping shape of some great, fantastical beast. It seemed so much more foreboding now.

"Odd how quiet the castle looks from here," Bann Teagan said, gazing out towards it, his voice strained and hollow. "You would think there was nobody inside at all."

There might not be, I supposed, though I didn't like to say so. The piles of corpses down in the square were stacked ten and fifteen high. The pyres would be burning for weeks.

Teagan turned from the fortress' fog-paled silhouette, and shook his head.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't delay things further. Thank you for coming, Wardens. All of you," he added, looking beyond me to the others.

"We will defeat whatever is responsible for this evil, your grace," Leliana piped up. "I swear it."

Bold words, and unexpected ones, too. I glanced back to see her dropping a delicate curtsey that, somehow, didn't even look incongruous, despite the leather armour. For a moment, I marvelled at that, before my sluggish brain prodded me back to the matter in hand.

"Er… you said you had a plan, ser?"

"Yes." Teagan blinked, and seemed to consciously drag his gaze from the Orlesian. "There is a secret passage that runs from beneath the mill up to the castle. It hasn't been used in years, but it could provide a way in. I would have tried before, but I couldn't leave the villagers, and the sheer numbers of those things…."

Alistair nodded slowly. "Right. A small group might get in undetected, take advantage of the disarray." He frowned. "But… we can't let you go. It could be dangerous. Even if—"

The bann's face darkened. "Alistair, if Eamon is still alive, I—"

"But you're needed here!"

I narrowed my eyes, almost entirely sure that fatigue and the weak gold glare of the morning sun were the only reasons the two men seemed to sound alike, as if this burgeoning argument was the offshoot of some tussle for independence begun a decade before. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself.

"Where would the passage bring us out?" I asked.

"The basements somewhere, I think," Teagan said, after a moment's calculation. "Beneath the kennels, probably."

"All right. Alistair, do you know that part of the castle?"

He snorted. "Oh, yes. Banished to sleep with the hounds more times than I can count."

_And that's a lot. I can count pretty high_.

I pushed the recollection of those words—of that easy camaraderie—from my mind, annoyed to find my view of him so easily changed… and my temper still so sharp. Stupid, I told myself. Petty.

"Then it's settled. We'll go in. All of you," I added, glancing back over my shoulder, "who are with me. Yes?"

Maethor barked enthusiastically, front paws pattering at the ground. Leliana and Morrigan both voiced their assent, one with golden optimism and the other with dismal sullenness, as different as night and day. Sten just grunted, which I took for an affirmation. After all, it wasn't as if I could actually _force_ him to do a damn thing he didn't want.

I nodded, a small bloom of satisfaction working its way through the fatigue.

"Good. Then you, my lord, will stay here. Alistair's right—the villagers need you to look to, and there's no guarantee that what's waiting up there isn't worse than walking corpses."

Bann Teagan looked rather surprised at my bluntness. Not used to being told what to do, I imagined, especially by the likes of me. Smugness swaddled me up in a warm and ignobly comforting glow, not that it lasted long. He set his jaw.

"I still maintain—"

The argument was destined to be cut short. Maethor let out another bark and, further up the path, where some of the lads were still clearing bits of bodies, a figure could be seen pelting towards us. My body tensed automatically, flesh-memories of the night still raw, and every thrust and swing etched into my aching muscles… but this was no corpse. It was a woman, obviously unused to running, and ill-dressed for it. The skirts of her white gown were bunched in her hands, and the tight lacing of her fancy velvet bodice must have made it hard to breathe. As she drew nearer, the militiamen piling up the dead stopped work and stared after her, their expressions almost as shocked as Bann Teagan's.

"Maker's breath!" he exclaimed.

He went to her, met her halfway across the ridge. She almost fell into his outstretched arms, clasping his hands to hold herself up as she panted for breath. Her honey-blonde hair was bound into an elaborate chignon, wisps escaping to frame a face from which the youthful bloom had faded, but was not yet wholly erased. Exertion coloured her cheeks, sweat beading her forehead, while her parted lips and large, brown eyes expressed panicked, imploring desperation.

"Teagan!" She dug white, slender fingers into his sleeves, her voice cracking as she dragged words from the ragged pool of breaths. "Teagan… oh, thank the Maker you yet live! There is not much time… quickly!"

The familiar twirls and lilts of an Orlesian accent—though apparently weathered by years in Ferelden—laced her speech, and I began to realise who this peculiar, dishevelled dervish must be.

She tugged at the bann's arms, already half-turning back to the path, as if she could physically drag him with her.

"Please! I cannot explain it here. I slipped away from the castle as soon as I saw the battle was over, but I must return quickly. You have to come, Teagan. I… need you to return with me. Alone."

Well, nobility or not, I wasn't standing for that—especially when we'd already agreed that the bann was to stay in the village. Every instinct I possessed screamed 'trap!', and urged me to prise the woman off him.

"Careful," I said instead, my tone brusquer than it should have been, "this could be an ambush."

The arlessa—for who else could she have been?—broke away from her brother-in-law and stared at me in surprise, as if she hadn't noticed my presence. In the space of less than a second, her expression shifted from desperate plea to unabashed vitriol; it was like watching a stone sink under dark water, without a trace left behind it. Of course, I realised, the nobility were good at masks… especially where she came from.

The brown doe eyes were hard now, like polished cobnuts, as she took in those who stood behind me—the massive, armoured presence of Sten, Leliana in her archer's garb, and Morrigan in her artful rags and leather—and the arlessa's lips bowed in distaste, as if someone had just wafted a week-old haddock under her nose.

"Teagan, who are these… _people_?"

Alistair sighed wearily. "You remember me, Lady Isolde, don't you?"

Her gaze shifted to him, and the curvature of lips became a jagged line, turning a face that might have been considered beautiful into something thoroughly repellent.

"Alistair?" She sounded genuinely appalled. "Of all the— Why are _you_ here?"

A stab of indignation went through my gut on his behalf. Bann Teagan cleared his throat.

"They are Grey Wardens, Isolde. I owe them my life. We _all_ do," he added pointedly.

Her face shifted again, a curtain of civility falling across the flash of temper, but I'd been learning enough about these circles of human etiquette to know the bow of her head was too fleeting, too shallow to be even passingly sincere.

"Forgive me," she said, turning back to the bann, "but there is no time to exchange pleasantries. I must return to the castle and, Teagan, you—"

"Lady Isolde," Alistair tried again. "Please."

I glanced at him, unsure whether I'd seen a fleeting hint of hurt in his expression. Maybe it was the light, or perhaps the fatigue. Either way, the look she gave him was venomous.

"We had no idea anyone was even alive within the castle. If there's anything you can tell us about what's happening… we need answers."

The arlessa switched her attention back to the bann, face softening into girlish entreaty once again, those pretty hands tugging, pulling at his sleeves.

"Teagan… make them see! I… I don't know what is safe to tell. I know you will want explanations but I-I cannot. I—"

"Calm yourself," Teagan soothed, taking hold of her hands again, one broad palm upon her quaking shoulder. "Come, Isolde. You must tell us what you know."

She looked from him to Alistair and back again, then erupted into tears.

"There… there is a terrible evil within the castle," she managed, gulping between sobs. "It is horrible! The dead waken and hunt the living. The mage responsible was caught, but still it continues…."

I saw Alistair's face stiffen. He nodded almost imperceptibly; he'd been right about the blood magic. Isolde shook her head, wringing Teagan's hand in hers and continuing to weep piteously.

"And I think—" She brought her voice down to a frail, damp whisper, knuckles standing proud as she gripped Teagan's wrist. "—I think Connor is going mad. We have survived but he won't flee the castle. He has seen so much death! You must help him, Teagan. You are his uncle. You could reason with him. I do not know what else to do!"

The bann looked anxiously at Alistair, and I was dismayed at how much effect a woman's tears obviously had on the pair of them. Not that I wasn't moved by the arlessa's heartfelt display… just that I didn't entirely trust it.

"What about this mage you mentioned?" Alistair asked, glancing at me over the top of her bowed, trembling, honey-coloured head.

I caught the meaning in his face—that none of this was coincidence, none of it was chance—and I didn't like the steeliness I found in his eyes.

"He is an… infiltrator, I think," Isolde said, and something about the way her gaze brushed down to the ground, the words halting as they dropped from those sculpted lips, struck me as odd. Dangerous, even. "One of the castle staff, that's all I know. We discovered he was poisoning my husband. That is why Eamon fell ill."

"Eamon was poisoned?" Bann Teagan echoed incredulously.

Isolde nodded, her chin dimpling as she fought back more tears. The big brown eyes were suddenly alert again, shiny and imploring, her gaze darting between the two men. My gut had turned to lead before she even got the next words out.

"He claims an agent of Teyrn Loghain's hired him. But," she added, accenting the doubt with a delicate sniff, "I don't know… he may be lying. I cannot say."

Alistair looked fit to explode. Dull fire burned in his face, as if the suggestion of Loghain's guilt was a disappointment and an outrage, but not a surprise. A muscle jumped rhythmically in his jaw, and I could have sworn he was grinding his teeth. I should have told him about the elf in the tavern, I knew it. Only… if this was true, what did it mean? Loghain had _meant_ to use the Blight to seize the throne? No man would be that mad, surely—and certainly not the great general and tactician whose name rang through history as the saviour of our independence.

It couldn't… it _mustn't _be so, I thought, and pulled myself up short. Whatever the truth, or otherwise, it was a matter for another time.

"But does the arl live?" I asked, aware that my voice was an incongruous addition to the discussion.

Lady Isolde shot me a look that might almost have been irritation, and addressed her reply to Bann Teagan.

"So far. He is being… kept alive, thank the Maker."

Teagan frowned. "Kept alive? Kept alive by what?"

"Something the mage unleashed," she said vaguely, shaking her head. "I don't know…. So far Eamon, Connor, and myself have been spared. It wants us to live, but I do not know why. It allowed me to come for _you_, Teagan, because I begged, because I said Connor needed help…."

I blinked. Hadn't she said she'd 'slipped' from the castle? I started to open my mouth, but I knew I couldn't question her… _shouldn't _question her. Not now.

"This 'evil'," Alistair said thoughtfully, "could it be some kind of demon?"

"I… I do not know." Isolde's eyes widened even further. "But I can't let it hurt my Connor! You must come back with me, Teagan… _please_. You must hurry. For Connor's sake. Come back with me, and come alone. There isn't much time!"

She was still pawing at him, for all the world like a petulant and demanding child. I folded my arms, the twinge in my bandaged shoulder not doing much to extend my tolerance. I was tired, sore… scared. This whole business sounded worse by the second, and for a moment I forgot my place.

"Maybe that's why I get the feeling you're not telling us everything," I muttered darkly, making little effort to hide my impatience, or my suspicion.

"I beg your pardon?" The arlessa glared at me coldly. "That's a rather impertinent accusation!"

Her choice of words made the edge of my lips curl, and I couldn't help but wonder whether she'd have picked the same ones if I'd been human. Still, after the night I'd had, I could muster little sympathy for the woman. My temper was short, and what internal censorship I usually engaged somehow didn't cut in until after I'd opened my mouth.

"Not if it's true."

Bann Teagan appeared surprised—and distinctly unimpressed—while Alistair gave me a look of desperate, appalled astonishment, the small but frantic movements of his eyebrows signalling it would be good if I shut up now. I could have shrunk in on myself, mumbled an apology, stared at the ground… I would have, once, but now I stood my ground. There was more at stake here than whether or not the local gentry were offended by the churlish manners of an insolent knife-ear.

The arlessa's scowl trembled and then dissolved into another wretched sob. She appealed to Teagan, white hands flying in frantic arcs.

"Teagan! I came here for _help_… what more do you want from me? An evil I cannot fathom holds my son and husband hostage! What if it thinks I am betraying it? It could kill Connor! Please… must I beg?"

"Very well." The bann sighed, and looked wearily from me to Alistair. "The king is dead, and we need my brother now more than ever. I will return to the castle with you, Isolde."

She let out a quivering cry, and I couldn't decide whether it was one of triumph or gratitude, but she fell to weeping again, and kissed his hands.

"Oh, thank the Maker! Bless you, Teagan! Bless you!"

I caught Alistair's eye, and for a moment I thought he'd look away, but he didn't. He just nodded grimly.

"It seems you have little choice, Bann Teagan," he said.

"Oh, I have no illusions of dealing with this evil alone," Teagan assured, prising himself from the arlessa's grip. He patted her hand gingerly. "Isolde, will you excuse us for a moment? Then I shall return with you."

She nodded, mopping at her eyes. "I will wait by the bridge. Please… do not take too long!"

We watched her pace away. The golden morning light flooded the ridge, and the world seemed sharp and crisp and clear; just like the dangers that lay before us. Alistair bit his lip.

"You really mean to—?"

"Yes." Teagan nodded. "I will go in with Isolde. You and your companions use the passage, as we discussed. Perhaps I will… distract whatever is inside and increase your chances of getting in unnoticed. What do you say?"

"This is insane! It's too dangerous. We can't let—"

"Alistair." I shook my head, resigned to the way I now saw things had to be. "What choice do we have? Any of us?"

"She's right," Teagan said, which surprised me. "If your business with Eamon is important, you're going to have to go inside to find him."

It didn't come naturally to me to side with the nobleman, but he had a point.

"You said yourself," I pointed out, with a slight waver of guilt, "that we need Arl Eamon's support. If the Wardens are to challenge Loghain's assessment of the Blight—"

"Yes, all right." Alistair's tone verged on the waspish. He exhaled tersely. "Fine. But, can't Ser Perth's men follow you or something?"

Bann Teagan glanced dubiously towards Lady Isolde, standing by the bridge and impatiently twisting her fingers together. Behind me, Morrigan snorted.

"If she truly relies on the goodwill of a demon to seek help, the creature would know of the knights' presence long before they even reached the castle."

The witch took a step nearer, bringing with her that customary waft of warm leather and dried herbs, and it comforted me in a strange way… the thought that the burden of the decision was no longer mine alone, perhaps.

"_We _shall be lucky to get in undetected," she added, and I glanced at her, not expecting the resolve I found in her eyes.

'We'. Small word, but it meant a lot.

"Then have them hang back," I said, trying to plot possibilities in the air before me, without having any idea where the next few hours might lead. "At least long enough for you and the arlessa to return, and us to— How long _will_ it take to get through the passageway and into the castle?"

Alistair shrugged. "Twenty minutes, maybe? Half an hour? Depends exactly where we come out, and whether there's… resistance at the other end, I suppose."

I grimaced. "All right. Then you'll have to play for time, Bann Teagan. And distraction. We'll use whatever advantage we have, and…."

I trailed off. I hadn't the faintest notion what we'd do, what we'd face… the world was swimming around me in syrupy, dreamlike strands, and it suddenly eminently possible that we were all going to our deaths. Even the lingering sweetness of that hard-won victory was turning to something rank and fetid in my mouth.

Down below, at the lakeside, the first of the funeral pyres was being lit, and it wouldn't be long before the men started piling the bodies up. No ceremony. No time for the proper offices, when so many had to be dealt with. The first thin trails of smoke started to trace the sky, and I looked away, back at the worried faces of my companions.

Leliana frowned. "So we are just going to send him with that woman? It seems so dangerous!"

Teagan dredged up a smile for her. It was weak, but warm.

"You're a good woman, my lady," he said kindly. "The Maker smiled on me indeed when He sent you and your companions to Redcliffe."

"He always knows best the paths on which He sets his children," she countered, with a gentle bow of her head, "that He may guide us when we are lost, and steady us when we falter."

There was a subtle, shifting moment of silence and then Teagan cleared his throat.

"I, ah, I must delay no longer, then. Allow me to bid you farewell… and good luck."

With a shuffle of assorted agreements—no one really wanted to say goodbye, it seemed, least of all Alistair, who still looked racked by indecision—he left us, and rejoined the arlessa.

Silently, we watched Bann Teagan and Lady Isolde begin to make their way up the cliff path, and cold fingers of dread traced the back of my neck. Beyond the ridge, the castle waited, wreathed in mist and dank foreboding, its dark shape filling up the sky.

It wasn't as if we had a choice.


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN

* * *

**

"Ugh, it's all in my _hair_!"

Leliana stopped for the third time in almost as many steps, frantically trying to claw bits of spider web from herself. The stuff seemed to hang from every unseen corner down here; thick, brittle, ancient stalactites that wafted in the dank currents of air, and stuck themselves to every unsuspecting head that passed by. I was glad I was the shortest one there, save for Maethor.

Morrigan sighed irritably. She appeared to have no trouble whatsoever negotiating the narrow passageway we were traipsing through… not that I was surprised by that. It was more than could be said for Sten. He'd been nearly doubled over for the first thirty feet or so after the dirt-packed walls closed in. Once we'd got out of the roomier end, leading on from the mill's storage cellars and undercrofts, the passage was barely more than a dark, dusty, clammy shaft, pitch dark and stale-smelling. We groped our way with nothing but the glimmer of a single rag torch, and Alistair's childhood memories of the castle's layout to lead us.

The trick, I found, was to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and not think about the tons of earth above my head. We were lucky, inasmuch as the passage remained usable, though it had long been abandoned. Still, things skittered in the darkness, and I held my breath, tempted to close my eyes in case the weak flame Alistair held lit up anything I didn't want to see. Redcliffe might yet be free of darkspawn, but Maker only knew what might have been down here, undisturbed until now….

Maethor whined, and I glanced down at the hound, the torchlight catching on his brindled coat and making the darker streaks seem blacker. His pupils were enormous, his expressive eyes swallowed up into saucer-like voids of apprehension.

"I know," I whispered, reaching out to pat his hard, flat head. "I don't like it any more than you."

He wagged his stubby little tail weakly, and padded on beside me. Amazing, I thought, how much warmth could be drawn from the loyalty of a dog.

Leliana let out another squeak and brushed more swags of old, decayed web from her hair.

"You know," Morrigan said conversationally, "in places such as this, where the Veil is thin, or has perhaps been sundered, the pooling of magical energy can wreak peculiar changes in things such as spiders."

"I do _not _want to hear it," Leliana said grimly, hefting her bow higher on her shoulder.

The witch smiled in the dim, flickering light.

"Oh, but it is quite fascinating. They can grow to ridiculous sizes, and develop the most virulent poisons. I remember once, when I was young, Flemeth sending me out to a ruin in the Wilds frequented by such beasts. Fangs quite as long as my hand, as I recall… and the most uncanny ability to spit—"

Leliana yelped, and Morrigan giggled herself into silence, at least for a while.

Gradually, the passage started to change. The air was getting damper, less like the stale dankness of packed earth, and more like something decaying, something… wet, and probably mouldy. The dirt and timber that framed the walls, replete with spider webs, began to give way to a pattern of stones, visible beneath the years' accumulation of thick dust and grime.

"We're probably just about underneath the moat," Alistair said, peering ahead dubiously. "It'll lead into the old dungeons, I bet. There's a maze of chambers, undercrofts, tunnels… all kinds of things built under the castle, right into the cliff."

"Dungeons?" Leliana enquired, tossing her head back as she completed retying her sleek ponytail—now completely free of spider webs.

"_Old _dungeons," he repeated. "I don't think the arl ever had much use for them. Not when I was here, anyway."

"Hm." Sten gave a disapproving rumble, and the sound echoed against the walls. "That does not sound like a practical system of governance. Punishment should follow crime."

"Oh?" Morrigan intoned. "Crimes such as yours, you mean?"

A few seconds of searingly awkward silence blistered the passageway. Sometimes, it was almost impossible to believe the things she came out with, although the qunari appeared unruffled.

"I am here, am I not?" he said dryly.

Morrigan chuckled.

Our footsteps were definitely hitting stone now and, as we went on, the passage wound its way from disused tunnel to something that was identifiably part of a larger structure.

"It's romantic, really, I suppose," Leliana ventured, shooting me a small smile. "Don't you think? You can just picture forbidden lovers making their way to secret trysts through these dark, winding miles…. Of course, it was probably a lot cleaner back then."

She reached up and ran a nervous hand over her hair. I shrugged.

"Perhaps. 'Course, it'd be a good way to get stuff out of the castle, too. Wine, brandy, meat from the kitchens… maybe more, depending on how well-guarded the armoury and the cellars were."

She gave me a rather odd look, and I shut up, suspecting I'd just been pegged for a thief. That wasn't true at all—Father would have leathered me to within an inch of my life, for a start—but, in my experience, the black market's existence was a simple fact. The less people had, the more they were willing to risk for luxuries… and sometimes necessities. Back home, few elves who worked in service had never 'borrowed' a loaf of bread from a tavern kitchen, or made light measure when changing the beer casks. If that meant the shems called us thieving scum, well, we were used to prejudice. It just made us careful not to get caught with any definite proof.

For all his strict values and even stricter rules, I knew Father had been just as guilty. Not often, and not much: just the occasional few odds and ends. Kitchen scraps from the bann's table, I thought bitterly… and it struck me as odd that it was something I'd never _been_ bitter about. Not until now.

Ahead of us, the passageway sloped up and, it seemed, came to a dead end. Alistair put the torch to the slimy, mould-streaked stonework, revealing the grooves and disused hinges of a hidden door, presumably designed to be used from the other side.

"We could try to lever it open," he said doubtfully. "It might give."

"Well, we don't have many options," I agreed, looking along the length of the wall.

We seemed to have hit the entry point into the castle proper, though whether we'd got here after Bann Teagan and the arlessa had arrived—and whether they had done so safely—was impossible to tell. Time had a way of falling in on itself down here.

"I will do this."

Sten stepped forwards, not waiting for assent or thanks, the greatsword that had dispatched so many walking corpses weighed purposely in his hands.

"Move aside," he said, glancing disparagingly at Alistair. "You are… small for this work."

Alistair looked affronted, and I smothered a laugh.

"Right," he muttered. "I'll just, uh, hold the torch, then."

Sten jammed the blade into the crack, and it bit with the tooth-scratching ferocity of steel on stone. I was only too pleased to get out of the way and leave him room to move… and he _was _impressive. Even beneath the hotchpotch of armour Owen had strung together for him, the starkly obvious landscape of muscles and sinews churned with all the unstoppable power of a waterwheel. That, and the expression of intense, oddly placid focus on his face, was enough to make me uneasy. I watched the startlingly white braids pinned at the back of his neck swing rhythmically as he drove the sword into the narrow groove over and over, gouging out years' worth of grime and mortar and, slowly, beginning to shift the stones.

Not so much a hidden door, then, as a door that had been bricked over—and from the village side, I noted. I was half-heartedly wondering whether that was important when Sten growled, and a chunk of masonry thudded to the ground by his feet. Little by little, he wrenched the stones away, revealing the wood behind them, and then set to demolishing the door. It didn't take much; it was damp down here, the wood already softened with rot. Still, it must have taken a stonemason at least half a day to seal the passage off, and Sten had undone all that work in less than half an hour.

He stepped back from the pile of stones and ruptured timber, barely panting, and still stooped over a little, though the passageway had widened out.

"It is done."

"Er, yes." Alistair blinked at the mess, and the ragged hole that now led into the castle's dungeons. "It certainly is."

"Thank you, Sten," I added, because politeness seemed sensible; especially after that display.

However, remarkable though the qunari was, I had to concede that all that crashing and banging had probably lost us any element of surprise we might have had. As we headed through the remains of the doorway, I wondered what might await us in the bowels of the castle.

I didn't have to wonder for long.

_**~o~O~o~**_

At first, we found nothing but decayed corridors and empty alcoves, probably once storage spaces. Leliana was wondering aloud about when the passage had been sealed off, and spinning some elaborate hypothetical tale about possible resistance cells using it to attack the Orlesian incumbent of the castle during the occupation. That surprised me. I suppose I'd assumed her sympathies lay across the border somehow but, of course, none of us were so simply, easily defined.

I should have learned that by then.

As we approached another corner, another crumbled archway, Alistair held up a hand. I recognised the gesture; my fingers were already closing on the hilt of my dagger. We stilled, and listened. Sure enough, I caught the same sounds of movement he'd heard, and there was somehow unpleasantly familiar about them.

"Walking corpses," he muttered, passing the torch to Morrigan. "Twenty, maybe thirty yards?"

I nodded. "We should try to draw them out. See what we're dealing with. There's no telling how many there might be."

The dull light of our rapidly dimming torch picked out the discoloured trails and rivulets coursing down the walls. Damp, dark, and tomblike… and now with yet more undead. It wasn't a heartening prospect. At least on the surface we'd had the chilly night air to blow the stink away, and there had been much more room. I didn't relish the prospect of fighting with my back to the clammy stonework.

Alistair looked as if he was about to reply but, before he could, a thin and reedy scream echoed from the passage ahead. It was a real howl of anguish, an agonised cry of pain, and there wasn't time to analyse anything else, because then we were running… running _towards_ it, which went against everything I'd ever learned in the alienage.

Not all of the cells were completely disused, it seemed.

Five corpses—guards, once, judging by the liveried uniforms that still clung to their bodies—were trying to wrench the bars from one of the doors. Immediately, I noticed something different about them: their anger. One by one, shambolic and ungainly, they turned ravaged faces towards us, and each had his lips pulled back into a grimace that was as much fury as it was a mask of death. When the first left its prey and came lumbering at us, it let out a snarl that I could scarcely believe a human throat was capable of loosing. It was an ugly, twisted thing, but it chilled me right to the core.

One of Leliana's arrows whistled past my shoulder and buried itself in the creature's left eye, just as Morrigan's first blast of ice—coming as it did with a burst of bright, burning magical energy that ripped the dimness to pieces—nearly blinded us all.

I thought I'd known pain before then. The buffeting my body had taken, in terms of fighting and fatigue; the blisters, the route marches, the apparently endless coshes on the head… I seemed to float on a cushion of them all, pain wound upon pain until I could feel practically nothing. I'd been awake for more than a day, wielding a weapon for most of the past twelve hours or so, and now I was high above myself, connected to my body by only the most tenuous of silver threads. It was beautiful, in a strange and unholy way. I was aware of ducking, lunging, cutting, thrusting… and of having my dagger knocked from my clumsy hand by a furious corpse that screamed into my face, all dead breath and bloody, brown teeth as its hard, cold hands wrapped around my neck, fingers digging into the flesh. Nails ripped, blood welled, and I wriggled frantically. There were dark echoes that called to me from the recesses of memory. Twisted ones, as if Fate was enjoying a joke at my expense, but they were there all the same… armoured guards, the unmapped portions of an arl's estate, with all these faceless corridors and empty rooms. It seemed I was destined to keep finding myself here, fighting for my life over and over again.

This time, however, I'd had more practice.

I kicked, twisted, dropped from the corpse's grasp… drew the light, narrow sword I carried and—with a terrible, efficient calmness that I witnessed as if it was happening to someone else—struck off the creature's head.

It crumpled to the ground, and it was only then that I realised I'd been screaming profanities.

For once, we'd outnumbered the undead, and we made short work of them. I straightened up, sheathed my blade and coughed, aware that my throat was rough and sore from the corpse's attentions.

"You'll have bruises," Leliana remarked, and touched my elbow gently, as if she was testing whether or not I'd lash out when she did.

I looked down at my hands. They were, as usual, dirty. Dried blood crazed my knuckles, and I clenched my fingers into my palms… which, for a while, stopped the shaking.

"I _always_ have bruises," I muttered, giving her a sickly smile.

A whimper from the cell drew my attention, and pushed back the clouds from my head. I lurched forwards, eager to see what the monsters had been so intent on hunting.

"Hello?" I croaked. "Anyone alive in there?"

I turned, reached for the torch from Morrigan, and held it up, peering into the shallow cell. A figure was huddled into the corner—a mage, judging by what was left of his dirty, torn robes. One sleeve was badly ripped, blood oozing from a nasty gash to his forearm and, as he cautiously raised his head and peered at me, I saw his face bore the mottled, swollen marks of a really thorough beating.

"Wh-who are you?" he asked, flinching from the torchlight and raising one thin hand to shield his eyes. "You… you don't look like the arlessa's guards. Are you from outside the castle?"

The mage climbed unsteadily to his feet, those knot-jointed hands clinging to the bars for support as he pressed close to the cell door, trying to see all of us, yet squinting against the torchlight. He must have been down here a while, I guessed. Alone, in the dark. The thumbnail was missing from his right hand; nothing left but a caked mess of blood and torn skin.

Staring in revulsion at the wound, I found myself evenly divided between pity and fear.

_He is… an infiltrator. _

The arlessa had warned of a mage, hadn't she? And Alistair and Morrigan—for once—agreed that blood magic was the most likely cause of the evil besieging Redcliffe. Yet the skinny, pale-faced young man before me, with floppy dark hair and nervous, uneven breathing, couldn't possibly be the one Lady Isolde had meant. Could he?

I took a step backwards. "I think you're the one who should be answering questions, mage."

He nodded, head lowered and eyes downcast… like a dog that's been whipped too often to think of biting. Leliana tutted.

"This poor boy is in need of healing, not an interrogation!"

"He's also the only person we've seen so far who's alive," I retorted. "I'd like to know why before I break out the ointments."

She looked unimpressed, but I was too damn tired to argue. The mage curled his hands tighter around the bars of his cell door.

"It's all right, I understand," he said in that curiously light, wheedling voice of his. "I… I know this looks bad, but it wasn't my doing, I swear to you. My name's Jowan. Lady Isolde hired me to tutor her son. But—"

"You!" Alistair scowled. "You're the one who poisoned the arl!"

"I'm not proud of it!" Jowan yelped, flinching away again. "It wasn't—"

"Just tell me why we shouldn't kill you right now!"

The thunder rolling across Alistair's face exploded into vituperative rage. It startled me to see he already had his sword half unsheathed, and I put out my hand, resting my palm on the bars, my arm a barrier between the two men.

"We should at least hear what he has to say, shouldn't we?"

Alistair exhaled tightly. He relented, but kept the mage pinned with a sulphurous glare, and the way Jowan cringed made me doubt he could have the nerve to do anything under his own volition.

"All right," Alistair grumbled, and I wondered whether he would really have run the boy through.

"I-It wasn't the arlessa's fault," Jowan said anxiously, pressing his face close to the bars. "Honestly. She had no idea. When she took me in, she just wanted a… a mage from outside the Circle. She wasn't to know what I'd been hired to do."

"Outside the Circle?" Alistair's scowl deepened even further. "Why did Lady Isolde need—"

I cut across him. "What do you mean? Who hired you?"

Jowan swallowed heavily. "T-Teyrn Loghain. It's true, I swear. I—"

"That traitorous _bastard_!"

I winced. I'd wanted to derail Alistair's anger, not fuel it. Still, it shocked me… it shouldn't have, but it did. I thought of the elven spy in the pay of Rendon Howe, sitting up in the tavern and watching the castle, waiting for— well, waiting for the first signs of the arl's sickness. It made sense now, didn't it? They'd been watching. Waiting for the arl to weaken. Waiting for the moment when all the cards were in place, and there would be no resistance….

Ever since Ostagar, and the debacle at the Tower of Ishal, I'd been prepared to believe this whole business was a mistake. I hadn't perceived the treachery and intrigue that Alistair had, and I'd thought it was some failing on my part; that his anger came from the depths of his grief and loss, that he needed Loghain to be the villain, because the deaths of all those men—of the king, and of Duncan—were too terrible a price to be laid on chaotic error. Too terrible a price, perhaps, to know that _we_ were responsible for. Plenty of nights since the battle, I'd told myself the beacon wouldn't have mattered, even if we'd lit it on time. The darkspawn had outmanoeuvred the king's army, and Loghain might have pulled his men anyway. They might all have died too… and there was nothing we could have done differently.

Of course, this changed everything. If it was true.

I tightened my grip on the cell door, centring myself on the feel of cool metal beneath my palm, when the world felt ever less real around me.

"Loghain? You mean, someone who was working for him?"

Jowan shook his head vehemently. "No! No, it was Teyrn Loghain himself. I-I knew it was him. I'd seen paintings. The Hero of River Dane. He came to see me in Denerim, while I was, er, a-awaiting execution."

He hung his head, but the show of remorse didn't win him much sympathy.

"I knew it!" Alistair snorted. "You're a blood mage, aren't you?"

Jowan nodded miserably.

"Truly?" Morrigan quirked her lips. "Well, I would never have guessed."

I glanced at the witch, trying to decide whether the interest in her expression—and the slight hint of respect in her voice—were there just to annoy Alistair, or because she really was impressed.

"I dabbled in the forbidden arts," Jowan protested. "A bit. But that's _all_. It was for— oh, it doesn't matter now. The teyrn told me I could atone for my crimes, if I did what he asked. He… he told me Arl Eamon was a threat to Ferelden, dangerous to the nation, and that if I dealt with him, then not only would I be helping my country, but that he'd personally see to it that matters with the Circle would be, um, _settled_." He raised his head and looked imploringly at me, his swollen eyes beginning to glaze with tears. "I thought I was being given a chance to redeem myself, but Loghian's abandoned me here, hasn't he? Everything's fallen apart, and I'm responsible!"

His voice cracked, and the tears started to fall. If it was an act, it was a good one.

"You're the reason we're knee-deep in corpses, then?" I asked sharply, because remorse alone is not atonement.

"What? No!" His eyes widened, as far as they could, and he shook his head fervently. "No, that wasn't me. I was already imprisoned when the killings began."

Alistair frowned. "But Lady Isolde said—"

"Lady Isolde is a pious woman. She hates magic. That's why, when Connor started to show signs—"

"Wait, what?" Alistair's frown deepened incredulously. "Connor's a _mage_?"

"That's why I was hired," Jowan explained patiently. "Not just for scholarship. I told you, the arlessa wanted someone outside of the Circle. She was so afraid of anyone finding out… even her husband. She said that the arl would 'do the right thing,' even if it meant losing their son, and that infuriated her. She just wanted me to teach Connor enough to hide his talents. That way he wouldn't be taken away."

Alistair's frown stiffened, then faded, and he sighed wearily. "Oh, _no._"

He glanced at me, waiting to see if I'd made the connection he obviously had, and I must have looked nonplussed.

"The Circle of Magi takes apprentices away from their families, yes. But, more than that, a mage can't inherit a title."

"Ah." I nodded slowly. "And Connor is the arl's only heir?"

"Exactly."

It made sense, and a small part of me was perversely pleased to be justified in my initial distrust of the arlessa. A dark and inescapable conclusion hovered over us, though, and I looked grimly at Jowan.

"Then, the walking corpses, the… whatever's going on here. It's the boy?"

He nodded. "I think so. He's still very young, and he doesn't know much, but… it is possible he could have done something inadvertently. I don't know. They locked me up here after the arl fell ill. I was new to the castle, so they suspected me at once. The first I knew of the killings was when Lady Isolde came down here with her men, demanding that I reverse what I'd done. I thought she meant my poisoning of the arl, but she was convinced I'd summoned a demon to torment her family and destroy Redcliffe. She… had me tortured. There was nothing I could do or say that would appease her."

His fingers flexed convulsively against the bars, and I trained my gaze on the bloodied mess of his thumb. It was far too easy to imagine what they'd done—and what they would have done next. I doubted a mage valued many things in life more highly than his hands.

"Why didn't they just kill you?"

"I'm not sure. I think they intended to come back for me. But the screams, they just got worse and… nobody came. I'd started trying to get out, but then those _things_ came after me, and I figured I was safer just hiding, until they found me. They'd have killed me if you hadn't come. I owe you my life. Please… let me out, and I'll help. Somehow. I have to at least try to make things right!"

There was a clear, desperate note in his voice that sounded genuine to me, but I looked to Alistair for a decision. He narrowed his eyes.

"You don't think you've done enough already?"

"Please!" Jowan's knuckles whitened on the bars. "I made a stupid mistake at the Circle, and now I've made an even greater one. I'm… not a bad person. There's no reason for you to believe me, but I'm not. I have to make up what I've done. I have to _try_."

I looked carefully at Jowan, my hand still lingering on the cool metal of the cell bars. Only those few inches of iron separated us, flaked with rust and pitted with years of dents and dings. I knew nothing of how blood magic worked, but I'd seen Morrigan cast enough spells to realise that, had he wanted, the mage should have been able to set us all aflame, imprisoned or not. The arlessa hadn't taken all of his hands. Not yet, anyway.

"You're very… eager," I said doubtfully.

He curled his lip, and I could see where they'd knocked a tooth from his jaw. Upper right, almost the same place as one of mine was still loose from last night's fighting.

"What? I'm not allowed regrets?"

His tone was harder, sharper… for a moment, with the dim light picking out the bloody shadows on his face, it was nearly possible to believe a boy like Jowan really _was _a maleficar. That comforted me, in an odd way.

The gentle clink of jewellery told me Morrigan was folding her arms across her chest, and I knew that penetrating amber gaze would be burning into the back of my neck.

"I say this boy could still be of use to us," she announced. "But, if not, then let him go. Why keep him prisoner here?"

I didn't want to look at her. I agreed, much to own horror. Whatever Jowan had done, he seemed repentant… had I not freed Sten under the same morals?

Alistair didn't sound convinced. "Hey, let's not forget he's a blood mage. You can't just… set a blood mage free!"

"Better to slay him?" Morrigan snapped. "Better to punish him for his choices? Is this Alistair who speaks or the templar?"

_Ouch_. She'd hit a nerve there. I felt it in the way his stance shifted, though I didn't turn my head, didn't bother to see whether his face was as stony as his voice. I was watching Jowan, expecting there to be some whiff of desperation about him, some impatience to see his fate decided. He just stood there, gaze downcast, swaying slightly… as if he didn't care what happened to him anymore.

"I'd say it's common sense," Alistair said brusquely. "We don't even know the whole story yet."

He had a point. For my own part, I was more inclined to believe Jowan's version of events over the arlessa's, but he had just as much reason to lie, if not more. What if we let him out, and then discovered he was the one who'd summoned the demon? No, that was silly. If he was, he'd be better protected, wouldn't he? Not alone in a cell, harried by walking corpses. I hadn't quite forgotten those screams of his, either… unless it was a bluff, some kind of trick. Maybe he _was_ a demon. I blinked, trying to focus through the tiredness and confusion, and more aware than ever that I was out of my depth.

Behind me, Leliana was wading into the debate.

"He wishes to redeem himself! Doesn't everyone deserve that chance?"

"Hmph." Morrigan scoffed. "Like yourself, you mean?"

"Everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves in the Maker's eyes," Leliana said evenly. "This man no less than any."

Jowan glanced up then, looking at her with unexpected softness, his mouth slightly open… almost as if she reminded him of someone. A pang of sympathy stuck me; we all trailed our pasts behind us, like kites on silver strings, their tails knotted with memories—and regrets.

"What d'you think, Merien?" Alistair prompted, obviously unwilling to make a decision. Again.

I sighed, and hoped he wasn't banking on me to stand up to Morrigan for him.

"You're right," I said. "We don't know the whole story. But I'm not about to leave him caged and defenceless."

Jowan brightened. "You mean you'll give me a chance? You won't regret it, I promise. I'll… I'll find some way to help."

"And after that?"

I didn't know why I asked. I suppose part of me wanted to hear that he'd run, escape somehow… that he _could_.

"Afterwards?" A hollow, dark emptiness settled in at the edges of Jowan's expression, almost eclipsing the hope that had flashed so vibrantly there. "I… don't know. I assume I'll be arrested. Or executed. Or whatever people like me get. But I'm tired of running from the Circle. I need to account for what I've done."

I looked at Alistair: a moment's silent enquiry. He nodded slightly, though those hazel eyes did not hold mine, and I knew he wasn't sure whether to believe the mage, or whether to trust my judgement. Given that, his loyalty was touching.

"All right," I said, stepping back from the cell. "Sten? Would you mind?"

The qunari had not contributed an opinion, but now he detached himself silently from the shadows and moved forwards, monolithic and implacable. Jowan whimpered.

"I'd cover your eyes," I suggested. "And get back as much as you can."

Sten sniffed philosophically as he squared up to the door.

"This would never have happened among my people," he observed. "We keep our mages under much more effective control."

He took hold of the door and, with a grunt of effort, wrenched the bars a good inch out of their settings. The mortar crackled and crumbled, and the metal squealed. Another few tugs, and the cell door ruptured off its hinges, allowing Jowan to squeeze through.

_**~o~O~o~**_

For all his assurances about wanting to help, it was abundantly clear in the first few minutes that the young mage was too badly hurt to keep up—and I doubted he'd be much of use if we ran into more trouble.

I suggested he use the passageway and head back to the village, but he wouldn't hear of it.

"I have to make it right," he kept saying, clutching one hand to ribs I suspected were broken, as he limped between Alistair and me. "I have to… to at least try."

There wasn't time to waste arguing. The rest of the dungeons were reasonably empty—though we did discover that the cells nearest the back staircase had not been half as disused as Alistair recalled. Slop buckets, unrusted shackles, and a pack of cards on a small table—a guards' game of Blind Boy Beggar left eerily unfinished—told of a part of the castle's life he had either never seen, or perhaps conveniently forgotten.

Maybe, I thought, one eye on Jowan's injuries, it wasn't naivety. Maybe things really had changed since he'd left… or since the arl's illness had allowed Lady Isolde a firmer hand on the place.

In any case, it made no difference. We crept up the back stairs and, oh Maker, I was reminded of the last time I'd done this, skulking through faceless corridors and chambers, heart fit to beat through my chest.

The castle was very different to Arl Urien's estate, in scale, layout and style, though I recognised many similar touches. As we reached the main floor—where noble folk would wander, and not like to be offended by the sight of plain woodwork or the feel of chilly draughts around their shoulders—the basement's bare, ugly walls gave way to clean, fine stonework festooned with tapestries. The doors were universally heavy, oak, and carved with bas-relief scenes that mainly seemed to involve hunting hounds. Properly lit up with torches, and with the sounds of life and bustle ringing through the halls instead of this ghastly silence, I imagined it would be very pleasant. Nevertheless, a small part of me refused to move beyond the thought that, if these rooms _were_ full of life, it would be the life of servants. Scores of them, scrubbing and dusting, fetching and carrying, and catering to the needs of the arl's household. Certainly, someone like me would never see the inside of this place, unless it was on my knees, with a pail of water at my side.

Maethor growled, and I pushed the sneaking, insidious thoughts to the back of my mind. They were small, jealous things, and not for now. The mabari had trotted a few paces ahead of us, hackles up as he pointed his wrinkled snout towards the large double doors that lay before us.

Alistair drew his sword. "I think that's the library. Past it, there's a way down to the courtyard, via the old chapel. That'll be the quickest way to get to the main hall. If Bann Teagan and Lady Isolde are still alive, I'd bet that's where they'll be… along with whatever's been causing this."

I grimaced. "You're going to tell me there's no side entrance now, aren't you?"

He shot me a dry, acerbic smirk. "Oh, if it was _easy_, you'd just get bored."

I snorted. At that point, boredom really looked good.

We were about to enter the chamber when, behind me, I heard Morrigan's sudden intake of breath. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw her eyes widen, gleaming with an intense alertness. Jowan felt it too: he tensed, and almost fell, clutching at his ribs.

"C-Careful!" he called, as Alistair's fingers closed on the handle. "It's waiting for—"

He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence. The second the door opened, something rushed out. I never saw it clearly. It was like a black, gritty wind; first one shape, then two, then three, whirling around us, impossible to strike at or escape. I didn't know what they were, just that my bones seemed to be made of lead, and my flesh hung from them like wet sand. I could barely move, rooted to the spot by a horrible, undeniable weakness.

"Shades!" Jowan yelled, which meant nothing to me. "They're demons! Don't let them deceive you!"

I didn't understand. My ears were full of that rushing, grinding wind, and then a face—or a near parody of one—reared up before me, screaming out of the ripped cloud. It resembled a twisted skull, but it was as if it was carved from the grain of the air itself… so immeasurably different to the revolting physicality of the walking corpses. These were creatures of the Fade, I realised; they spurned the rules and the realities of this plane.

_I am greater than this_, the skull seemed to say. _I am greater than you all. _

It was a dark, metallic sound… not a voice, but the impression of a voice, as if I remembered the creature speaking, whether or not I'd truly heard it. The gaping, sucking mouth, and the holes where eyes should have been, pulled at me, and I felt my whole centre shift, as if it could draw me into it, suck me dry and leave nothing behind but a desiccated rind. All my thoughts, memories, dreams—everything I was, had been and might yet be—_that_ was what it wanted, what it hungered for. I had to resist. I knew that, and yet….

"You'll have to do better than that!" Morrigan shouted, a bolt of white light leaping from her staff and striking one of the creatures.

It hissed—or screamed. I wasn't sure which; hard to tell when the sound seemed to lodge itself right in my brain without ever having passed my ears. The shape of a clawed hand scythed through the air and caught her on the side of the head, and it snapped a thought into focus. Demons in their own forms, not trapped inside the body of another… how were we supposed to kill them?

Alistair cannoned into the third shade, shield up and all his bodyweight behind the blow. It hit something, at least—the thing howled, and it seemed to stretch out, its shape changing and thinning, as if all it had to do to deflect this world was simply bend, simply reach away. He stumbled, thrown off balance by its easy avoidance, and the thing came back hard. It slammed into him, and it had physical form enough to send him sprawling.

To my right, Jowan sent a weak pulse of magical energy against the creatures. It caught one's attention, and it sprung around, clawing through the air towards him. Everything stank of mould and staleness, and I flung myself forwards, knowing he was too weak to resist it alone.

"What do we do?" I yelled, swiping madly at the shadows and feeling nothing but cold and weakness enfold me.

"Draw them," he shouted, lurching back and trying to hold himself up. "Draw them out! Don't… don't let them _see _you!"

I didn't know what he meant at first, but it soon became clear. These things fed on the spirit, drawing all the life—the messy, chaotic jumble of things it meant to be mortal—from their prey, and draining them. Keeping them on edge, never letting them train their attention on any one of us for too long, was the only way we had of not sinking into that shrouded oblivion. I felt it, though: snaking around me, pushing at the edges of everything, tugging me and beckoning me towards it. _Rest_. _Sleep_. That was how they did it; like spiders numbing their meals with a bite, then emptying them completely.

We fought hard, fast and nimble. Distractions and flurried attacks that fell on bodies made of little more than cloth and whispers. It was like wrestling nightmares… and hadn't I done enough of that in the past few weeks?

Still, we kept them busy while, together, Jowan and Morrigan focused their magic on the demons. The creatures weren't as strong as they'd first appeared. The struggles weakened them, and it certainly seemed as if they could be hurt, maybe even killed. I wasn't sure if that's what happened, or if they just retreated, slunk back to the Fade, or to some other hidden corner of existence. Either way, first one went down, and then the others followed. Each was the same: a roar, and a whirl of that gritty, dark wind, then it was just… gone. We were all left standing there like idiots, panting and clutching naked blades, armed against an empty room.

I glanced around me, seeing the space for the first time, and found myself awestruck. There were shelves as high as the ceiling, all full of books. Endless rows; more than anyone could read in a lifetime, surely. Lecterns, some with tomes open upon them, and well-worn chairs beside the cold, unbanked fire, suggested that someone had used this room regularly, though maybe not for a while. Small, high windows allowed shafts of light to fall on the smooth flagstones, and the centre of the floor was thickly carpeted with an enormous red rug. Doors led off to the left and right and, not knowing which way we should go, I looked to Alistair for directions. He was staring at the fireplace, mouth tight and gaze fixed on some distant pinpoint of memory. Easy to forget how much this must hurt him, I supposed, but my sympathy was stained with misgivings. I still wondered: how often had he been back here? How many letters had passed between him and the arl, or Teagan? And how close to all of this—the politics, the power, the privilege—had he really been?

A thud behind me signalled Jowan falling over, and Leliana rushed to help him up. I blinked, ashamed of myself. We had no time for petty jealousy.

"Is he all right?"

"He needs a healer," she said firmly, hauling the mage to his feet, his arm around her shoulders.

Jowan groaned and mumbled something about being fine, which his pale, sweaty face rather belied.

"We go this way," Alistair said, pointing to the left-hand door. "It should lead out towards the courtyard. From there, we can open the gates. You could… get him back to the village faster than trying to get through the passageway."

He sounded reluctant, but it seemed unlikely that Jowan would be able either to escape, or perpetrate any kind of unclean magic, given the shape he was in. For one so weakened, he'd put a lot into fighting the shade demons, and I supposed we had to trust in that.

I nodded. "All right."

_**~o~O~o~**_

Things did not go as easily as we'd hoped. Despite the number of bodies we'd cut our way through in the village, it seemed the castle held more surprises. Most of the wing between the library and the courtyard was running with undead; they came out of nowhere, teeming like silverfish on damp wood. There were more elves among them. Servants, I supposed. It shouldn't have made it harder, but it did. Hollow eyes, snarling mouths… bodies and faces too like my own. My blade faltered on the first one: a girl, probably about my age when she died, or maybe a little younger. She was blonde, and pretty, with pale blue eyes that had turned milky and opaque in death. Her white skin had a mottled, blue undertone, and her grey dress was stained and dirty. I stared at it, thinking how ashamed she'd be of that, how it just wasn't _right_, and my sword hung, limp and useless.

Sten pushed me aside, a hand almost as large as my head easily brushing me out of his path. I stumbled, though I didn't fall. He took her down in a single stroke, clean and efficient, and all I could do was watch the neatly detached head roll on the stone floor.

Something of the previous night's grim rhythm returned for a while; nothing but the dull thuds of flesh and the bite of steel, broken by the occasional groan or growl of a corpse, or a grunt of effort. Only once it was over did we hear the sniffling coming from one of the small side-chambers.

It turned out to be Valena, the smith's daughter, and that provided a moment of such unadulterated joy. I might have promised Owen we'd find her, but I hadn't necessarily believed it—especially once the state of things in the castle became clear. At best I'd assumed that, if we even got back to the village alive, we'd have to tell him she was probably among the walking dead… but here she was, very much alive. Corpses definitely didn't scream so much.

I tried to calm her, but the sight of an armour-clad elf wielding a blade and splattered with blood and bits of brain matter didn't seem to help, so I stood back and let Leliana take over. She was, I had to admit, much better at it than me. She did the hair-smoothing, back-rubbing thing, cradling the girl like a child and hushing her with that sweet, musical voice. Eventually, she stammered out enough scraps of information to confirm what we thought—that Master Connor had, as she put it, 'been took' by something, but fear had won out over curiosity and, as soon as the trouble started, she'd hidden instead of trying to flee. It had probably saved her life.

"I just want to go home," she wailed, and Leliana looked imploringly at me.

"There could be more survivors, no? We should look for them. Not everyone in the castle can have perished."

"Foolishness!" Morrigan snorted. "The more time we waste turning out every storeroom and cupboard, the more likely we are to attract the demon's attention. It almost certainly knows we're here anyway… it is just a matter of whether or not it chooses to attack."

I rubbed a hand across my brow. My head hurt, not that I really noticed it. Everything hurt, and my tongue felt thick and dry.

"All right…. Leliana, take Jowan and Maethor. Make sure Valena gets back to the passageway safely. It might not be the quickest route, but at least we know we've cleared most of the creatures out down there. If you find anyone else alive, that's great, but we have to push on. You can catch up with us in the main hall, which is across the courtyard, right?" I glanced at Alistair, waiting for him to confirm my grasp on the castle's layout.

He nodded hesitantly. "Yes, but are you sure splitting up is a good idea?"

I shrugged. "The mage is injured. Leliana's right: he needs healing. And this girl needs to get home. Would you rather she goes alone?"

"Well…."

He didn't sound entirely convinced, but then I knew I was no tactician… not that any other bastard was coming up with a plan.

I looked at Morrigan, half-expecting her to argue, but she said nothing. Sten was doing his statutory impression of a rock-face, and Maethor was licking Valena's salty cheek. Leliana nodded.

"All right. I shall do it. But we must move fast, yes?"

"Yes."

We rose, divided, and the sense of unease was almost tangible. That small, weak voice at the back of my mind—my alienage brain, I told myself—kept beating the same chant over and over: who did I think I was? What right had I to think I could take charge, to think I could do anything but get us all killed? I was nothing but a foolish child, a chit of a girl who should have been strung up for her bloody-minded insolence the day she dared take up arms against her betters.

_You'll die here. You'll all die… and none of it will matter. _

I blinked and shook my head, trying to concentrate on following Alistair down yet another stone-walled corridor. Was it my own imagination, conjuring threats from my fear, or something else? I knew nothing about demons, except that they came from the Fade. Just the same as dreams, then, I supposed. Yet anyone who says dreams can't hurt you has never had a bad one. Half-real memories swam behind my eyes; blood-red rock and swarming, teeming bodies, black and jagged against a thick, putrid fog. As I'd been learning since my Joining, dreams could be many things, and their boundaries were both flexible, and dangerous.

Nearer to the heart of the castle, we found more traces of the carnage the past few days had seen. Tapestries ripped from the walls, floors and rugs soiled with blood and filth… doors, furniture and statues broken into pieces. There were a few bits of corpses, too, though they remained fortunately inanimate. I'd lost all track of where we were, which was north or east, left or right. There were too many twists and turns, too many staircases and side chambers. Alistair seemed to know where he was going, at least. He stomped through, tight-lipped and intensely focused, checking every door and corner we passed for the possibilities of traps or ambushes. No one wanted to get taken by surprise, especially now our presence must have been noticed.

"I don't like this," he announced in hushed tones, as we came off the foot of a winding stone staircase, beside a small, squat wooden door that led out into the courtyard.

From the staircase's narrowness and rough finish, I guessed it was for servants' access… and it occurred to me that so were most of the routes Alistair had led us down. I'd thought it was meant for stealth, but just for a moment it struck me as odd. The thought floated away like mist, and I frowned.

"No," I agreed. "S'quiet."

"It is _too _quiet," Sten put in. He already had a firm grip on his sword.

Morrigan's black iron staff scraped the flagstones as she shifted restlessly behind me.

"Then I say we go out there and make some noise," she said, and her voice held an unsettling hunger.

She could feel something, I guessed. Something powerful… which meant we must have been getting close.

* * *

_A/N: Continued thanks to my intrepid readers and reviewers! Getting back on track with regular updates and organisation now. Ish. Chapter Eleven coming soon, with an elegant (I hope) solution to a few loose ends... _


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note: Okay, I deserve to be pelted with pulpy vegetables. I've been very lax with updates. Sorry. Must try harder. Workload clearing very slightly for a couple of weeks now so, with luck, I'll do better. If not, get those tomatoes ready, and I shall take the punishment I'm due. *cringe*

* * *

_

**CHAPTER ELEVEN

* * *

**

Bright sunlight filled the courtyard. We'd come out at the far edge, the last vestige of the bustling, labyrinthine passageways that served the castle's daily business. The smell of dead bodies and musty tapestry cloth soiled with dried blood was still rank on me, and it felt strange to see that—in the midst of all this death and violence—there could still be sunshine, and fluffy white clouds scudding across a flawless blue sky.

A stone stairway led up to the main doors, which I knew without looking would be heavily barred and bolted. Below, down a slight slope, the portcullis and double-walled gates that separated the forecourt from the route down to the village were still tightly closed. It was all as serene as a painting, but for the bits of discarded equipment and scuffmarks in the dirt that told of the fight the arl's guards must have put up before they fell. There were no bodies, of course. Not just lying there, anyway.

I glanced at Morrigan, curious as to what she sensed. Her breathing was tight, shallow, and she scanned the borders of the courtyard as if she _knew_ there was something there—something that was aware of our presence, and just waiting for us to walk into its trap. I began to think Alistair had been right, and that splitting up hadn't been such a good idea.

There wasn't much time to think about it, though. Up on the walls, crouching behind the crenellations and now rising, aiming at us with sightless eyes, were at least half a dozen archers and crossbowmen. They bore Eamon's badge, and so did the corpses pouring down from the cover of the guard towers. Like the others we'd seen, these were more than shambling flesh-puppets. They wielded weapons and, worse, the tempered steel of pure hatred, knapped to an edge with maddened fury. As a hail of arrows splintered down from the parapets, we scattered. Morrigan flung out a blaze of magical energy intended to blind and disorient the creatures, while Sten raised his sword and unleashed a terrifying qunari battle cry that, under other circumstances, would have made me wonder if all their words sounded so violent.

A few slim, elegant ash trees dotted the courtyard. In defiance of the coming winter, they still held onto the last of their leaves and, as I ducked behind one pale trunk, I was briefly amazed at the brightness of the colours. Stark, red-tinged green, so sharp against the blue sky. It seemed unbelievable—as if none of this was more than a paper cut-out, a stage upon which we danced—yet it wasn't as if I was unused to seeing brutality next to beauty. I gritted my teeth and swung out from behind the tree, plunging into the fray as weirdly detached as before. I know I took risks: overextended my sword arm, misjudged blows and dodged attacks by sheer blind luck. Somewhere, through the fog and the comfortable cushion of pain—that barrier of exhaustion and aching fatigue that stopped me really thinking about anything—I was floating through it all. Nothing mattered except the weight of the blade and the thud of steel biting dead flesh.

Alistair was yelling about cover. I remember peering dreamily across the courtyard at him, frowning as I spotted the arrow sticking out of his shoulder, and then seeing Morrigan pirouette across the debris-strewn ground. Her robes spiralled around her like the beating wings of some ragged bird, and the sunlight glinted sharply on the jewels she wore. Her black iron staff sailed through strange, wild angles, spurting ice and flares of light, and the hair crackled on the back of my neck. Without her, we'd have been dead a dozen times over, but it didn't mean I was comfortable with her magic.

Now, she was everywhere, all at once holding them back and striking them down, positioning herself between Alistair and the onslaught. I fought my way over, barely even seeing the corpses I hacked through and, somewhere at my core, slightly sickened by that knowledge. His wound could have been worse; he was still standing, and still swinging at anything that came close, though his shield arm was obviously weak. Sten was out in the centre of the courtyard, a little way from us, and I cursed my stupidity at first dividing our numbers, and then allowing us to wander blindly into this mess.

That said, watching the qunari fight was like witnessing an entire battlefield in motion. He moved between stances effortlessly, as if he anticipated the enemy's every move. They swarmed him, but he never faltered. It made what came next worse, somehow.

Morrigan yelled the word. _Revenant_. I didn't know what it was, what she meant… just that there was a moment of panic, and she turned her fire towards the far corner of the courtyard. I thought there was another wave of corpses coming, and then it hit.

I'd felt the force of _her_ magic before—but nothing like this. It caught all four of us, the sensation that of something warm and slightly prickly, like a dry summer wind, gritty with the sweltering debris of the city. A greasy, metallic taste clogged my mouth, and I blinked owlishly, not understanding what the witch had warned against. I still didn't know what it was when we went flying through the air, tossed aside as easily as dolls and flung against one of the great stone buttresses that supported the inner courtyard wall.

We landed tangled in a muddled, yelling heap. The arrow in Alistair's shoulder had broken off at the shaft, and blood welled through the jagged ruptures in his armour. A ripped, bloody swatch of shirt was visible between the torn leather bands, but he could use the arm well enough to help support himself as he scrambled to his feet. We were all stunned, weakened… my head spun, and I couldn't quite believe it had really happened. Things moved too fast for me to grasp, seconds running into each other like muddy raindrops. Sten and Morrigan were both up, and I had my sword in one hand, and a dagger in the other—and it still wasn't enough.

The creature was unlike any of the other corpses, though it was of the same mould. The body it was using had, I judged, once belonged to one of Ser Perth's men; I recognised the badge that held the ragged cloak about its shoulders, and the same bright tracery on the armour. He'd been tall, broad… a well-muscled and experienced knight, his face hidden beneath the square steel shell of a helm that glinted in the sunlight. The blow that had killed him—a great, tearing gash to his side—was still visible, the metal armour sundered and dented, and the flesh beneath beginning to turn black. I thought I saw the pale wriggle of a maggot, but there wasn't much time to dwell on details.

The revenant took a few paces sideways across the courtyard, looking at us with its head tilted as it moved, much the way a cat might inspect incapacitated prey. A knight's sword—a blade of impressive, ornately tooled steel, easily the length of my arm and half again—swung delicately in one heavy gauntlet, as if the thing was merely toying with the idea of a fight.

We were pressed in tight together, knotted up in deference to being both outnumbered and, quite possibly, outclassed. Tension burned the air as the seconds spun out, no one making the first move. The remaining handful of corpses were holding back; waiting, I thought, for this new monster's command.

At my right, Sten jostled impatiently. Morrigan put out her arm, a barrier to impulsive action.

"These things strike hard," she warned. "It is a demon of pride, or greed. Powerful. You have seen its command of magic. Do not give it the advantage."

"Right," Alistair said dryly, pain etched into the hoarseness of his voice. "I'll bear that in mind when it's holding me down and hacking my arms off."

Sten gave a low, unsettling growl. "The remedy to that," he rumbled, "is to be the one doing the hacking."

I let out a short bark of laughter that was probably symptomatic of hysteria, though the tail of it died as sparks guttered from Morrigan's fingers. She was bent into a ready crouch, staff held at an angle and thick silver bangles clinking on her bare, white arms. The dead knight's helm tilted from side to side as magical energy rippled in the air before her. I didn't understand what she was doing at first—neither striking or preparing an assault, just keeping a tiny pulse of light moving at the ends of her fingers. Her face was a tight mask of concentration, lips parted over small, even teeth.

"You see it?" she murmured, those ochre-gold eyes unblinking. "_See_…."

I did. The creature was watching her, apparently fascinated. The blankness of that bloodied helm frightened me; I could easily have believed there was a dull red glow where the eyes should have been, or that there was nothing beneath the armour but a nightmare, waiting to pull me into its centre the way the shades had tried to do. That wasn't true, though, was it? There was a body there, a thing that had once been a man, and it _could _fall.

"On three," Alistair said quietly. "One…."

Sten nodded, leaving me the only one who didn't quite know what was going on.

"Two…."

"Er, hang on. What—"

'Three' didn't quite happen. Sten yelled, Morrigan loosed a burst of ice, and there was a mad tumble of steel and legs that broke all that aching, painful tension into tiny pieces.

The revenant was a demon of pride, desire and greed. It fed on those impulses, and in turn they defined it. Like all its kind, its existence on the mortal plane was a troubled one, driven by hunger and need, and the ravening insanity that stalked close behind. It sensed Morrigan's power the way she felt _its _presence, and it desired it. After all, a dead body provided easy pickings for a creature of the Fade, but the residual shreds of life were nothing beside the tempting promise of a powerful mage.

Its greed was its undoing, distracting it just enough—just _long_ enough—for the three of us to hit up close, hard and fast. As Morrigan's frost burst disorientated the creature, Sten swung in at the front, smashing a mighty blow into its chest. Alistair took the left flank, an arc of metal and violence, and I found myself in my usual position: spitting dust amid a forest of legs.

The remaining corpses were no longer holding back, and the melee quickly grew chaotic. I ducked, rolled, and came up behind the demon, seeking a weakness in all that dented plate armour. The knight's ornate, keenly balanced sword swished past my head with a noise like tearing silk, and pain erupted at the tip of my left ear. I yelped, and thrust my blade into the revenant's back as it spun, trying to tackle assailants from three different angles. Morrigan screamed at us to pull back, and it was clear she had problems enough of her own. Corpses clawed at her, and she struggled to hold them off alone. As the other two pulled away from the fight, I hesitated, thinking we would draw the demon onto her. Alistair grabbed the back of my jerkin and, as he dragged me out of the way, I understood the strategy no one had bothered to tell me.

The revenant struck its sword against the flagstones once more, preparing whatever foul magic it was that had sent us spinning through the air before but, this time, the remaining undead bore the brunt of the damage. Greed had its uses, I supposed; particularly where blinding a fool was concerned.

The demon succeeded only in breaking its own allies against the stones, which made them easier to dispatch, and left it unguarded. It howled with rage, and Morrigan ploughed towards it like some mad, dancing black flame, lobbing spell after spell at the creature. We piled back on it, and the smell of frostburnt carrion and dead, rotting flesh was so far down the back of my throat I almost failed to notice it. When Sten struck the killing blow that, at long last, saw the creature slow, topple, and finally fall, it seemed we'd been fighting for hours.

There was such silence in the courtyard… and no sense of triumph. We stood, panting, looking down at the thing, and the body seemed small, despite the sword still clutched in the metal-sheathed grasp. Alistair bent down and pulled it from the dead knight's gauntlet.

"This should get back to Ser Perth. He'll know who this man was."

I glanced around at the bits of other bodies, other men… hadn't they all had names, and families? Or did knighthood impart some greater worth?

I winced, and absently reached up to pat the sore tip of my ear, staring dispassionately at the blood that glossed my fingers when they came away. Just a nick, for which I was absurdly thankful. It wasn't as if I'd been pretty to start with—but I had no wish to lose my points.

"Let's just find Bann Teagan," I said, wiping my hand on my filthy breeches. "It's this way, right?"

_**~o~O~o~**_

Under less abnormal circumstances—and with fewer bloody body parts strewn around the place—the castle would have been impressive. I might have cowered as Alistair led us up through the main doors, and stared in wonder at the bas-reliefs and gilded fixtures.

Instead, I shivered as the mighty panels of carved oak closed behind me, and squinted into the darkness of a dank, filthy hallway. There were beeswax candles in iron sconces, but they'd been ripped from the walls, just like the tapestries, and the whole place smelled of death.

It was too quiet as we made our way towards the main hall; no sound but the mismatched paces of four sets of boots, and Morrigan's iron staff clicking on the stones in counterpoint.

We were all tense. I glanced at Alistair, but he intimidated me. Silent, thin-lipped, and with the revenant's sword still in his hand, he wasn't entirely the comrade I'd begun to grow used to fighting beside. The arrow wound in his shoulder looked bad, but he just shook his head when I asked if he was all right, and said it was fine. I didn't argue, though I didn't like the pallid, waxy cast to his face.

One more turn of a corner, one more corridor full of smashed statuary and torn fabric, and we were almost there.

"It's close," Morrigan said softly. "I… believe we are expected."

I looked dubiously at the wall, and what had once been a very beautiful painting of a young woman. She was in tatters now, dark scraps of canvas fluttering from a gilt frame. Alistair grunted.

"Hm. Maybe we'll get lunch."

It wasn't his usual flippancy. There was a dull, hollow quality to his voice, and it prodded me towards the same unthinkable truth that I'd been trying so hard to avoid: if Connor had really been possessed, then surely there was only one possible course of action. My stomach clenched, and I glanced back over my shoulder, wondering where Leliana was now.

Too late to wonder, though. We'd found what we sought.

The doors to the main hall were open, as if everything within was being framed just for us, no more than a play, a revel.

It was a huge space, the fine stonework hung with cloth-of-gold tapestries and the high ceiling a mass of interlocking beams and bosses. At the far end, a great fire roared, and there was a dais, which held a small dining table, groaning beneath the weight of fine decanters and salvers of food. Other benches were ranged the length of the hall, though they'd been pushed back to the walls, as if to make space for a party.

Guards thronged the edges of the room, each one standing stock still with a crossbow or sword in his hand, and a blank, empty look on his face. It was hard to tell, at first glance, whether they were alive or dead… but my eyes did not linger on them.

On the dais, seated at the table, was the boy I guessed must be Connor. He was young—Maker, so very much younger than I'd thought—and he laughed and clapped delightedly as, on the floor in front of him, Bann Teagan rolled and tumbled like a jester.

Lady Isolde stood by the boy's shoulder, her body hunched and her eyes downcast, her mouth a curve of misery. The fire leaped and danced, tongues of amber light throwing eerie patterns across this absurd scene.

We came to a halt in the open doorway, and I heard Alistair's intake of breath. Bann Teagan performed a dramatic somersault, landing on his hands, and then—as Connor stood up, attention suddenly switching from him—he collapsed to the stones, limp as a wet rag.

The boy came to the edge of the dais, looking down the length of the hall at us. I'd never seen such an expression on so young a face. Pale skin, with the well-fed peachiness of a human child, and an amply covered frame… yet the look in his face was one of feral curiosity, and the barely suppressed anger of madness.

"These are our visitors," he said, his thin, boy's voice echoing off the stones as he tilted his head, peering at us the way the revenant had done… almost as if he couldn't see us, but sensed us by smell or some other, horrible method. "The ones you told me about, Mother. Isn't that right?"

She'd known all along. Known, and let us walk blind into the trap. I supposed I shouldn't have been surprised. Connor _was _her son, and he was just a boy… he couldn't have been much more than nine or ten years old.

The arlessa nodded wretchedly. "Y-yes, Connor."

She raised her head and looked at us, and I thought I could see the firelight catch at tears on her cheeks. The guardsmen hadn't moved, hadn't even blinked or glanced at us. They were still as… well, as corpses, which worried me. Bann Teagan crawled across the floor and sprawled himself at the foot of the steps leading up to the dais, ankles crossed and arms propped upon his knees. He grinned inanely into the middle distance, and giggled to himself.

I'd never seen magic that could do such a thing to a person—never even thought it could exist. My heart hammered at my ribs, and I fervently wished we'd discussed what we planned to do. I looked at Alistair, just in time to catch him striding forwards across the neat flagstones, firelight glimmering on the sword he still held.

"What have you done with Bann Teagan?" he demanded.

"Uncle?" Connor smiled unpleasantly. "But Uncle Teagan is right here. Say hello, Uncle."

The bann looked up at him and waved mechanically. "Hello, Uncle!"

"Dear Uncle was very full of himself earlier," the boy confided, lips drawing back into a smug sneer. "I think being a jester rather suits him."

He reached out to the laden table, pulled the leg off a stuffed chicken and threw it to Teagan, who caught it and at once began to guzzle the meat. Connor chuckled, and it was a horrible mix of a child's laughter and something much older, much darker than any boy should ever know.

"So…." His gaze ranged coolly over us. "These are the ones who defeated the soldiers I sent to reclaim my village? It won't do. Won't do at all. And look at this one!"

The child's face warped into an expression of outraged, appalled horror, and he pointed a finger at me. I gritted my teeth, determined I would neither flinch nor cringe.

"Look at it! It's staring at me, Mother."

Isolde whimpered, and her voice shook when she spoke, though her tone was striving to be that of a woman speaking to her child. She still believed he was in there, I realised. She still _hoped_.

"She is an elf, Connor. You… you've seen elves before. We have them here in the castle, and—"

"Yes!" He clapped his hands and let out a snort of laughter. "I remember… I had their ears cut off and fed to the dogs!"

My stomach knotted in a sudden fist of revulsion and, I am ashamed to admit, hate. The child—the _creature_—must have sensed the reaction, for Connor turned to me again, head tilted to the side, and grinned. He lifted one hand and gently fingered his own ear.

"The dogs chewed for _hours_. Such fun! This one has been insolent, Mother… shall I send it to the kennels?"

The arlessa let out a stifled sob and began to move towards the boy, her tapered, white hands outstretched.

"C-Connor, I beg you, don't hurt anyone!"

She dropped to her knees, her fine gown smattered with dust and dirt, and clutched at his arm. He resisted at first, shook his head, and then seemed to blink as if he was waking from a dream, confused and disorientated.

"M-Mother?" The same voice, but clearer, not burred with that hard edge of hatred. "What… what's happening? Where am I?"

"Oh, thank the Maker!" Isolde cried, seizing the child by both arms now, shaking him hard. "Connor! Connor, can you hear me?"

His moment of clarity did not last long. Connor broke away from her, and I swore I saw the change in him; the way his face grew pinched and his brows drew tight together, eyes clouding over and body becoming taut and somehow angular.

"Get away from me, fool woman!" he snapped. "You are beginning to bore me."

The arlessa put those white hands to her mouth, and wept bitterly. I saw Alistair look to me, his face grim. Isolde was right: the boy was still in there. The demon had control, but it was not complete. I wanted to think there was some way we could save him, some hope that we would not have to—

I swallowed hard. Had I thought of it? Truly? Thought of what it would mean to sink my blade into the neck of a child, and watch his blood spill out onto my hands?

"Please!" Lady Isolde's cry was a heart-wrenching, ragged wail, broken through with tears and edged with pain. "Please… can't you see? He's not responsible for this. It's not his _fault_!"

She reached for her son, but Connor brushed her roughly away, and she fell to her hands and knees on the dais, sobbing afresh.

"Protecting him the way you have hasn't made this any easier," Alistair said darkly.

Even the air in the room seemed to taste bitter. My gaze flicked nervously between them as the arlessa raised herself to her knees, her face twisted with fury and hurt.

"You _dare _to—" she began, the bile cut off by a mangled cry that was half sob, half snarl of rage. "No! Connor did not mean this! It was that mage, the one who poisoned Eamon—_he _is to blame. Connor was just trying to help his father!"

The boy was prowling, keeping his distance behind the small dining table. His chubby, childish fingers picked impatiently at the treats sprawled out across the cloth, shoving candies and sweetbreads into his mouth, but the dark, shadowed rings of his eyes never left Alistair. He—_it_—knew what would have to come.

Behind me, Morrigan snorted. "Was he? And he made a deal with a demon to do so? Foolish child."

Connor scowled. "It was a fair deal!" he shouted, spraying crumbs across the table, gobs of half-chewed food dropping from his greasy lips as if suddenly forgotten. "Father is alive, just as I wanted, and now it's _my _turn to sit on the throne and send out armies to conquer the world! Nobody tells me what to do anymore!"

"Nobody tells him what to do!" Bann Teagan parroted, rocking in his hunched position at the foot of the dais. "Nobody! Ha!"

The fire seemed to be drawing warmth out of the hall instead of providing it. I tried to suppress a shiver as Connor—or whatever we should have termed the thing currently wearing his skin—curled a dismissive lip.

"Quiet, Uncle," he snapped. "I warned you what would happen if you kept shouting, didn't I? Yes, I did. But let's keep things civil. These people have come for an audience, and they should have it. Tell us… what is it you want?"

There was a moment of harsh, dry silence. The fire cracked, and Alistair's boots scraped on the flagstones as he took a step forwards.

"To stop you, demon. We know what you are… and this _will_ end here."

He sounded brave. For a brief, absurd moment, I thought of the lurid tales in my childhood books, where princes faced down terrible monsters and triumphed with their pure hearts and magic swords. Alistair still had the revenant's sword in his grasp; the tip of it touched the flagstones next to his worn, dusty, bloodstained boots. His armour—the rough, mismatched kit we'd bought third-hand in Lothering—was dishevelled and stained, his ash-wood shield marked with all sorts of unpleasant mementoes of battle. Dried blood caked the left side of his face, and he appeared to be swaying very slightly.

Connor scoffed, and that thread of darkness, that otherness that was not the child's voice, saturated his words.

"I doubt that very much, mortal."

Something deeply unsettling happened to the room; it was like a flash of lightning on a grey summer's day, when a storm breaks without warning, the sky seems to turn inside out, and the world catches it breath. I heard a howl, a scream of something in terrible pain, and realised it was Connor… fighting whatever it was that was within him. The air shook, the fire roared, every torch in the place blew out—and the guards that fringed the room suddenly seemed much more alert.

Connor flung out his arms, a sheet of white light projecting not just from his hands, but his whole body. I felt myself knocked to the ground, my eyes burning with the imprinted shape of something not human, something… something I did not, at that point, understand.

I didn't see much after that except the guards piling on us. That they appeared to be already dead—puppets rather than corpses animated by possession, as far as I was any judge—was little consolation. We fought hard. Morrigan put everything she had into driving them back, while Sten held the centre of the room, his greatsword whirling in devastating patterns. Alistair was wielding two blades—the knight's sword and his own—in a furious flash of steel and desperation, and I found myself wresting the windlass from one man before he could fire the thing, and cracking his head open with the stock. When a blow to the back of my neck knocked me flying, I let the crossbow fall from my hand and spun, dagger ready to open up my assailant… only to find it was Bann Teagan.

The look on my face must have mirrored the horrified shock I could see deep in his eyes, and my blade faltered. Stupid, because he—or whatever force had control of him—brought his fist around in a generous arc and smacked it squarely into my mouth. My whole head jarred, and pain burst in sharp white stars as my vision swam. I lurched, knees wobbling, and the taste of blood had me spitting and retching. I watched my loose tooth skid across the flagstones in a splatter of thin, red saliva, and caught myself on my hands as I fell. Thinking that I should have seen that one coming, and probably dodged it, I stuck out my leg and tripped the bann as he lunged towards me. He went down, I scrabbled to pick up my blade and scrambled over, and we were a tangled, thrashing mess on the floor. I wanted to hold him, not kill him, but it wasn't the first time I'd had my arm around the throat of a human man, squeezing and choking as he clawed at me in desperate agony.

I let go as soon as he went limp, and flung myself away from his prone form, panting.

_**~o~O~o~**_

When the dust settled, Lady Isolde was standing by the fire, its amber light haloing her pale figure, eyes great pools of horror in that white, oval face, and her honey-coloured hair dishevelled. Connor was long gone. Two large, iron-bound doors led out of that end of the room, one each side of the fireplace. The boy could have fled through either one… or _she_ could have shoved him through either one, I corrected.

I started to heave myself to my feet, lungs sore and throbbing and my head light.

"What have you done?" Alistair demanded, pushing past me to where Bann Teagan lay.

I didn't have an answer, barely able to breathe as I was. The hall was littered with bits of bodies, the bitter copper tang of blood tainting the air. I hung back, feeling useless and stupid as there was a general flapping and fanning to revive the unconscious nobleman.

Sten was wiping down his blade, surveying the mess with apparent disinterest… though I had begun to learn not to judge the qunari by appearances. Morrigan stood to one side, leaning heavily on her staff, the rise and fall of that artfully framed bosom the only suggestion of her exertion. She met my gaze, and the look in her eyes confused me. It was strange; part satisfaction, part cool mischievousness, and partly almost like some kind of fellow feeling. We were both outsiders, I supposed, adrift and unwanted by the world in which we now found ourselves.

Her lips curled into an odd, tired, snarling smile—was that respect I saw there?—and she nodded at me. I looked away, aware now of the intense throbbing in my lip and jaw, and the taste of blood in my mouth. I spat again, a thin dribble of it hitting the stones, and tried to avoid probing the ragged, empty tooth socket with my tongue.

Bann Teagan was coming round. That was good, I realised blearily. The arlessa was fussing at him like a wet handkerchief, tugging at his arm in that peculiarly girlish manner—embarrassing, we would have said back home, in a woman of her years.

"Teagan! Oh, Teagan… are you all right?"

The bann sat up, coughed, and nodded, pushing her gently away. "I-I'm fine, Isolde. I am myself again."

His voice was as rough as mine had been after we met the corpses in the dungeons, and I had no doubt I'd left my mark on him. Still, as he turned those dark blue eyes to me, Teagan found strength enough to smile grimly.

"That's… that's quite an arm you have there, Warden."

I inclined my head, not all that keen to let my relief show. "Your left hook's not so bad either, ser."

Maker, but talking hurt. Teagan's smile widened a flicker, then his face turned solemn, brows drawing close over that long, sharp nose.

"I am truly sorry. Are you—"

"Fine." I brushed away the concern, and glanced to the doors at the far end of the room. "Where's Connor?"

Alistair helped Teagan to his feet, shooting me a look of guarded, tight apology as he did so. I gave him a small nod. It didn't matter. He cleared his throat.

"I didn't see him go, but… the family quarters are upstairs. I suppose—"

"Please!" Isolde cut in. "No… Connor is not responsible for this! It's not his fault. He—"

"You knew about this all along, Isolde," Bann Teagan reproached sharply. "If you had only said something…!"

Her mouth crumpled, her whole face like a faded rose wrapped in layers around the girl she must once have been.

"I was afraid," she murmured. "I didn't speak, because I believed we could help him. I still do."

A heavy, awkward silence fell, into which the fire crackled ominously. I looked at Alistair, hoping he'd have some diplomatic, sensible thing to say—did a templar's training extend to comforting the relatives of blood mages they were about to kill?—but he was looking at me, probably with much the same expectation.

I supposed I might as well make myself the scapegoat.

"Lady Isolde," I began, pushing the words past the sticky rawness of my split lip, and hearing how thick they sounded. "Connor is not in control. The demon that possesses him has killed countless numbers of—"

"And what do _you_ know?" she demanded, glaring at me. "My son is not always the demon you saw! Connor is still there. You saw it!"

She was right, but it changed nothing. The arlessa turned back to Teagan, tugging again at his arm, tears filling her great doe-eyes.

"Please, Teagan! I just want to protect my son!"

He frowned. "Isn't that what started this? You hired the mage to teach Connor in secret… to protect him."

"They would have taken him away!" she protested, her voice rising to a tremulous quaver. "I thought if he learned just enough to hide it, then—"

This was going nowhere.

"Why did Connor run?" I asked, cutting across the woman.

She treated me to another glower, but managed to squeeze out a tight-lipped answer.

"Violence… scares him. I know that sounds strange, given everything that— It is _him_, don't you see? Not the demon. From time to time, he does come back into himself. That is why I know he _can_ be helped!"

Alistair nodded thoughtfully. "But he's passive now. Which would mean he might be, uh…."

He trailed off, shifting uncomfortably and clearly unwilling to say what I supposed we were all thinking.

"Vulnerable," Teagan supplemented bitterly.

The arlessa's hand went to her mouth. "No… you can't be suggesting—no! He remembers nothing… he is so frightened. He doesn't know what— Blessed Andraste, he is but a _child_!"

"What about Arl Eamon?" I asked, hoping to divert the woman from another peal of fractured agony. I understood her pain—or so I thought—but it didn't make the choice ahead of us any easier. "He'll be upstairs too, yes?"

Teagan nodded. "His sickbed is at the top of the east staircase. The creature has shown no interest in harming him so far, but, if Connor _did _make a pact with the demon to save his father, then…."

His words fell leaden into the air. Yet another complication. I glanced at Alistair, taking in the closed-in set of his face, the glassy look in his eyes. To think we'd come here expecting sanctuary, and the answer to all our problems.

I closed my eyes, took as deep a breath as I dared to do, and tried to think. It was horrifying to discover—somewhere above all the pain and fatigue, and the awful weight of indecision—that one bright thread, silver and terrifyingly clear, running right down the middle of my mind. I grasped hold of it and, in the blackness behind my eyes, everything suddenly seemed simple.

Item: the mage-child was possessed. Maker alone knew how many deaths he'd caused already. He had to be stopped. Item: if the demon was destroyed, Arl Eamon might never recover. A possibility, but a dangerous one.

However, should that happen, surely his estates would pass to Teagan, or at least to Isolde? I had no experience of how the nobility ran their inheritances, but it seemed likely. Everything we had come to Redcliffe for—supplies, men, the pledge of support to warn and unite the country against this accursed Blight—we would still be able to get, whether Eamon lived or died.

Probably.

I opened my eyes, and the silver thread vanished in the dimness of the hall. There were anxious, tight-lipped faces, and bodies on the floor, and for all the clear, simple truths in the world, I did not want to be the one who murdered a frightened child.

I sighed, and turned to the figure in black, waiting at the edge of the room like a shadowed ghost.

"Morrigan…?"

She stepped forwards, her staff clicking on the stones. The firelight picked at those golden eyes, and she twitched her lips impatiently.

"Hm. You would have my advice, I suppose?"

Alistair clenched his jaw and, for a moment, I thought there'd be a comment coming, but he said nothing. I nodded.

"Please. You know better than me… is there anything that can be done for Connor?"

The witch looked thoughtful, then inclined her head. "Perhaps."

"What?" Lady Isolde's face segued brilliantly from vituperative indignation—the haughty 'who is this woman?' obviously trembling on her lips—to desperate hope. "You must tell us!"

Morrigan's gaze hardened. I guessed _must_ did not sit well with her. Still, she shrugged, as if none of this was more than a trifling matter.

"A mage may be possessed by a demon, through weak will or carelessness… but to give oneself willingly as part of such a deal as this is a different matter. It is possible that the demon might be driven out, and the boy's life spared. But," she added quickly, "I do not know how to perform such a ritual and, even if I did, it could not be done alone."

"But it is _something_!" the arlessa said, raw faith and hope grating in her voice. "You see? A chance, however small… we must take it!"

Her face was alight with this new possibility, and I saw what Jowan had meant when he spoke of her piety. She must— oh.

_Jowan_.

"You'd need, what, then?" I asked Morrigan, a frown creasing my brow. "Another mage?"

She snorted. "Several. Such an undertaking would require many mages, and a great deal of lyrium. I… suppose you are thinking of the boy in the dungeons?"

You couldn't sneak much by her, and we were hardly overwhelmed with options. Magic was magic, surely, and if Jowan could aid her, I bet we'd be able to overlook his affiliations.

I nodded. "Would it be worth…?"

Morrigan narrowed her eyes, the swoops of shadow she wore making her precise expression hard to read.

"It is a possibility. Such magic may harness great power, after all. There are those who say _that_ is why your Chantry forbids it."

"Wait…." Alistair frowned. "You don't mean—"

"If you prefer," Morrigan said icily, "by all means, take your blade to the boy. Do it while he is weak, and hope he is not waiting up there in ambush."

He bridled, and I couldn't blame him. As was so often the case, the witch's words held a degree of hard truth, but they left a horrible taste in the air.

_**~o~O~o~**_

The argument was a bitter one, and Lady Isolde did not help matters. Her initial reaction to the idea of sending for Jowan bordered on the hysterical, yet the very thought of our attacking Connor had her almost flinging herself in front of the door to defend him.

We did not have the time to weave in her endless circles of impossible choices, and I for one was fast losing patience. Decisions had to be made and—as had been happening with increasing regularity—my companions looked to me for the making of them. The absurdity of that still did not fail to surprise me, and it birthed a hard knot of resentful anger that, in a way, I suppose I was grateful for. It gave me the strength to _be_ the one who shouldered the blame.

I had Sten and Alistair make the iron-bound doors secure and pile up the corpses that still strewed the floor. We would hold the hall, if nothing else. Bann Teagan was given the ornate sword Alistair had wrested from the revenant, and sent to get word to Leliana and Jowan, whom we assumed were still somewhere between the village and the wing of the castle we'd already fought our way through. He promised to return with them, and Ser Perth's men, as quickly as possible, and that left me to sit with Morrigan and Lady Isolde, and try to piece together a fuller picture of how the whole affair had begun.

Arl Eamon had fallen ill, from what I could make out, within days of the battle at Ostagar. I knew, recalling Duncan's words to Cailan as we arrived at the fortress, that Eamon had been hale enough to agree to the plan of holding his forces back—though whose idea that was I still couldn't be sure—and to send word to remind the king of their readiness. I wondered how much difference it would have made if Cailan had listened… how much difference it made _now_, come to that.

But had it been planned to coincide? I didn't want to believe it, and I told myself it didn't matter. Whatever Loghain's motives—although there was a lingering stink of opportunism in the way things looked—it didn't seem possible that one man could orchestrate such a coup. Still, it didn't matter now. Connor and the demon within him were our immediate concerns.

"He is a gentle boy," Isolde kept saying, in between sniffles. "This is why I know it is not— He wouldn't hurt anyone!"

The weary breath of a sigh rattled between Morrigan's teeth, and she stared fixedly at the wall opposite. I cleared my throat, and tried to drag the arlessa back to speaking of the first signs he'd shown.

It hadn't been much, apparently. Glasses that shattered when he lifted them, plants in the little corner of the kitchen garden they had tilled together that grew twice as big as the seeds she had sown.

"I-I told him he had green fingers," Isolde said mournfully. "But I knew. There is a… history of it in my family. Terrible, wicked men, who have all had magic. I did not want that for my boy! I prayed it would not be so… that he might be delivered from the curse…."

She dissolved into weeping again, and I caught Morrigan's eye. One delicate brow arched, and those painted lips pursed themselves into a tight bow. I shrugged. The shoulders of the arlessa's white gown shook as she sobbed convulsively, and I reached out hesitantly, laying a grubby hand on the fine cotton lawn.

"Um. There, now," I tried. "You had his, er, best interests at heart."

She looked up, glaring at me through the veil of tears. I withdrew my hand, reading in her face the boundaries I had overstepped.

"Do you have children?" she demanded. "No? Then you cannot understand. Do not presume to give me false comforts. I know what I have done—all the death I have brought—and I would do it again. _That _is my shame, and you know nothing of what it is to bear!"

I shut up and sat back, put firmly in my place.

The waiting was not easy. The great hall was relatively safe but, though the walls were thick, we could still hear the occasional odd noise coming from elsewhere in the castle. There were thumps, crashes… things that sounded like cries, from time to time. It sent a shiver down my spine, and the silence we sat in began to feel thick and awkward.

The only one of us who seemed able to wait patiently was Sten. He sat on the floor, near the fire, and it surprised me that someone so large could hunker down into so still and compact a position. Those odd, violet eyes were half-hooded, and he seemed to be gazing at some distant point, far beyond the immediate reality of this tense, siege-like existence. I wondered if it was prayer. Did the qunari pray? The Chantry would have had us believe they were bloodthirsty animals, and I supposed I could see where the impression sprung from, but it certainly wasn't all there was to them.

At that moment, Sten exuded such a sense of tranquillity and calm that I was rather envious. I would, I decided, find some way to ask him about his people… and maybe about the truth of what had happened in Lothering, though I wasn't completely sure I wanted to know.

Like Morrigan, Sten's usefulness outweighed any moral qualms I could allow myself to indulge regarding his presence… and I wondered quite when I'd grown so hard and pragmatic. Somewhere atop the Tower of Ishal, I supposed, shot full of arrows and dying in a roar of blood and agony.

I had those dreams more often than I cared to admit. We were there again, with the smell of paraffin and blood and the rankness of ogre-flesh making the world draw in like a scream, and the flames were rising higher and higher, and then the darkspawn came… but I didn't pass out. They closed over me, ripping me to pieces, and I felt every tooth and blade as they stripped my body to the bone.

I'd wake, then, and the dream would still be sticking to me, clammy and horribly real. Once or twice, Alistair had been standing over my bedroll, looking down at me with a worried frown. We didn't talk about it. No point, I supposed. I knew he had dreams too and he had, I didn't doubt, experienced the same strange gamut of changes that followed the Joining, though there were some things I couldn't have asked him about, even if I'd wanted to.

I hadn't had a normal course since leaving Denerim. At first, I'd thought it was the stress of the journey and the events of my conscription, but time was wearing on, and things weren't as they should have been. Still, that was the least of my worries, I supposed, and if nothing else it freed me from the inconveniences of rags and cramps. I should have been grateful for that, whatever the reason.

Alistair's boots echoed on the stones as he paced—bored, apparently—the length of the hall and back again.

"Is it just me," he said, "or is anyone else hungry?"

Morrigan snorted. "You are _always_ hungry."

I smiled gently, careful of my split lip, but grateful for the break in the tension. The small dining table still sat on the dais, holding the remnants of the food Connor had been glutting himself on. Roast chicken, sweetmeats… all manner of delicacies, some of which I couldn't even identify.

Lady Isolde waved imperiously at the spread.

"Eat it," she muttered. "You always were one to think with your stomach, Alistair."

He'd already wandered over to the table, ostensibly oblivious to her disdain, and was prodding at the food. Having satisfied himself there was nothing demonic about it, he helped himself to half a chicken and a bunch of grapes.

"Well?" Mouth full, he raised his eyebrows defensively. "When's the last time we ate anything, hm?"

A belated growl from my stomach forced me to admit he had a point and, after a brief struggle with my pride, I hauled myself up and sloped over to join him. It was a long while since my last meal, and who knew how long it would be until the next. That said, I didn't eat much. Something about the prospect of imminent bloodshed saps the enjoyment from food, and everything tasted of copper and salt anyway.

Still, when the sound of boots pounding in the corridor beyond the large double doors alerted us to the fact Bann Teagan and the others had returned, we must have looked like we were enjoying an impromptu picnic. Even Morrigan was tucking away a few morsels.

Sten lifted the bar from the doors and admitted the relief party: Ser Perth, the knights, Teagan, Leliana… and Maethor, who bounded straight up to me, barking happily, and almost knocked me to the ground as a tongue like a side of bacon gave me the most thorough wash I'd had since leaving home.

"I do hope we're not interrupting," Leliana said, the delicate twists of her accent wreathed with mirth.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Castle Redcliffe's great hall had, in its time, probably seen its fair share of bitter meetings. 'No powerful man rests easy', as Father used to say. Hard choices were bred into the very rock places like this were built on, and without that degree of ruthlessness, the strongest walls might crumble.

Still, I thought there would be blows.

Ser Perth and his detachment of knights were at Teagan's back, surprisingly bright-faced after the long night they'd had. They jostled like a pack of terriers, eager to be loosed on the castle and claim back their arl's safety—and the symbol of his rule—and they did not take kindly to Jowan's presence. It was a wonder the mage had made it this far without 'accidentally' tripping over someone's boot. He'd been bandaged, but the more obvious of his wounds could hardly be disguised beneath linen and plaisters, and he shrank when he saw Lady Isolde.

Naturally, she was hardly the model of grace and humility, even though she'd expected his arrival.

"_You_!" She rose from her seat on the dais, her face pinched with violent fury. "You did this to Connor! You summoned that—that _thing_…!"

"I didn't! I didn't summon any demon," Jowan protested. "I told you, my lady! Please, if you'll just let me help—"

"_Help_?" the arlessa shrieked. "Help? You betrayed me! I brought you here to help my son and in return you poisoned my husband!"

Bann Teagan went to her side, laying a warning hand on her arm, without which it seemed entirely possible Lady Isolde would have flung herself at the mage, an iron-clawed creature of vengeance and anger.

"Isolde… Isolde, you must calm yourself. These people have done a great deal of good. If it wasn't for this young man, and… and Leliana," he added, his gaze sliding to the Orlesian, head respectfully inclined, "there are several survivors who would never have made it back to the village alive."

She curled her lip, eyes still blazing, but she did relent. I looked to Leliana, and she nodded. It was true, then: they'd got Valena to safety, and been fortunate enough to find others who'd escaped the demon's wrath. That was good… unexpected, but good.

Later, I would discover that our flame-haired battle maiden was well on the way to becoming a folk hero in those parts. Redcliffe would, for years after, be abuzz with tales of the Orlesian sister who came to free them, with fire in her eyes and music in her voice. She had the kind of face well-fitted to legends.

"I only want to help, my lady," Jowan repeated diffidently. "Please. If what my lord tells me is true…."

The atmosphere in the hall was like whetted steel, with seconds sliding on a glistening, dangerous edge. Ser Perth stood by the doors, watching the exchange intently. Like the other knights, he still wore the silver-cast symbol of Andraste around his neck. I wondered if faith and conviction would be enough to see any of us through what had to come. Beside me, Maethor whined softly, and without looking I reached out and touched my fingers to his warm, bullet head. A wet, wrinkled nose shoved itself into my palm.

"The child has become an abomination," Morrigan said, her voice cutting cleanly across all the highly wrought emotional tension in the room. She addressed Jowan, stepping forwards with her back to the arlessa, the firelight painting a dim, amber aura around her. "But it was a willing deal, and the creature's possession is not complete. The boy has much ability, yes?"

"Indeed." Jowan nodded. "I saw that, even in the short time I had with him. But he's young, and he has very little control. You think…?"

Morrigan tilted her chin. "Can you do it?"

He sagged visibly, his hands worrying at the torn sleeves of his robe, and his head bowed. Bann Teagan shook his head.

"I confess, I don't understand. You're saying there is a way to destroy the demon without… without harming Connor?"

Jowan looked up, his bruised, swollen face warped into an apprehensive grimace.

"There _may_ be," he said hesitantly. "It is… technically possible for a mage to confront the demon in the Fade."

"What do you mean?" Teagan appeared nonplussed. "Is the demon not within Connor?"

"No, my lord. At least, not physically. Not fully. The demon approached Connor in the Fade while he dreamt, and it controls him from there. We can use the connection between them to find the demon, and hopefully… well, defeat it."

This was an eerie, unsettling realm of which I knew nothing. I thought briefly of the mages I'd seen at Ostagar: guarded by templars and cocooned in their own strange, sparkling shells of white. I glanced at Alistair, and found him watching Morrigan, his mouth tight and his face full of quiet disapproval.

Lady Isolde spoke next; all hopeful, earnest curiosity that was in such marked contrast to her last outburst that I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

"You can enter the Fade, then, Jowan? Kill the demon without hurting my boy?"

He looked wretchedly at her, and opened his mouth to reply, but it was Morrigan who answered.

"It is not that simple. Such a ritual requires a great deal of power. Lyrium… a _lot_ of lyrium, and mages. More than we have at our disposal."

"E-Except," Jowan stammered, his voice growing thin and reedy in the stifling, thick air, "I… I have blood magic. I… think I know a way."

I knew we had to consider using him, but I didn't have to _like _it. Back home, old men would have spat on the floor. Women would have made warding signs with their fingers, and pulled their children away. We didn't speak of foul things. All magic was distrusted, but—

"Blood magic is forbidden for a reason," Alistair said sharply.

The distaste radiated off him; I felt it in the way Ser Perth and his men shifted uncomfortably, too. I glanced at Leliana, and saw those icy eyes narrowing. She was still buoyed by the satisfaction of victory, I would have bet, carried on the smiles and thanks of the people she'd returned to their homes.

From somewhere above the hall, a noise echoed… something like the thud of furniture falling over, and glass breaking. We all raised our heads, and for a moment no one seemed to breathe, but then everything fell silent again, and the arlessa let out a short, ragged sigh.

"If there's a way, I must know it. Please! Tell us what you mean, Jowan."

He winced. "L-Lyrium provides the power for the ritual… but I believe I can take that power from someone's life energy. From blood. But the ritual requires a lot of it… perhaps all, in fact."

"My lord!" Ser Perth protested, starting forwards, but Teagan held up a hand.

"You're saying someone must die? Someone must be sacrificed?"

A cold, dark fist clenched my stomach. Hard choices indeed. Nothing but hardness and death in these dim stone halls, and more blood to drench this parched red rock.

"Yes," Jowan said, the word barely more than a whisper. "I… I think I know how to perform such a ritual, though I've never done anything of this… complexity before." He twisted the hem of his sleeve awkwardly in his fingers, that quire of dark hair flopping down over his brow, and I was struck by how young he seemed. "Still, I, uh, I should be able to send another mage into the Fade."

He glanced up, looking from face to face for some kind of assurance, some grain of a decision. Young, I thought, but that youth was misleading. Maker only knew what dark things he'd done, and my gut roiled at the mere thought of what he was suggesting. I'd thought bringing Jowan back here might be a way to prevent more death—not ensure it.

To sacrifice an innocent on the off-chance that we might have the opportunity to defeat the demon…. What if it didn't work, and we still had to kill the child? Or what if yet more horror was unleashed? And how could anyone even be sure that Connor wouldn't play host to something worse in the future?

I knew precious little about magic, but this was too bitter for me.

"No." I shook my head, and found my voice surprisingly loud in the quiet. "Not if it means this. The price is too high."

Jowan nodded solemnly and lowered his gaze.

"I disagree," Lady Isolde said sharply. "I think we should do it. Let it be my blood. I will be the sacrifice."

A chilled, terrible hush echoed in my ears, but no deathly silence fell in the hall. A chorus of outrage broke from Ser Perth's knights, and Bann Teagan stared at the woman, aghast.

"What? Isolde, are you mad? Eamon would never allow this!"

She shrugged, every trace of that passionate ferocity suddenly condensed into a hard, glassy determination. He tried to take her arm—jar sense in her the way she'd tried to shake some humanity back into Connor—but she jerked away, firm and deliberate.

"No, Teagan. Either someone kills my son to destroy that thing inside him, or I give my life so my son can live. To me, the answer is clear."

I stared at the arlessa, impressed and unwillingly humbled by her swift, resolute decision. She'd taken no moment to think, and she expressed no grief, no regret… I admired that, but I didn't take it for balanced, rational thinking.

Morrigan must have caught my unease. I didn't dare look at her, expecting irritation. Maker, it had been me to _suggest_ finding a use for Jowan… I just hadn't envisaged it would mean this. Yet, when she spoke, Morrigan was uncharacteristically hesitant, her usually arch tone dropping to something nearing gentleness.

"It does seem like a sensible choice, with a willing participant."

The arlessa turned her gaze on me, and I saw the full force of her pain and determination in those dark eyes. Her mouth was a pale, guarded furrow; faded petals drawn tight around a paper rose. I swallowed heavily, and shook my head.

"I… I don't…."

I didn't know what to say. I had no clever words, no brilliant arguments. I wished I had—knew I _should _have had, because of what I was now. Grey Wardens were supposed to be heroes, weren't they? Surely they didn't deal in blood magic. We shouldn't stand by and let this happen.

Lady Isolde's expression hardened and she turned away, ignoring me with all the arrogant grace she'd had the first time I saw her, at the bridge. She pulled at Teagan's arm again, the way she'd done then, and I could see how easy it must always have been for her to make men do as she pleased.

"Teagan, you know this is the only way. When it's over, I want you to tell Connor—"

"Lady Isolde, please!" Alistair's voice was roughened by fatigue and tension. "You can't… I mean, we're not seriously considering allowing this?"

He looked at me—like I had a casting vote here. All that clear, honest intensity… I felt about two inches high, and jealous of his ability to see things so simply. How he could not be torn in two, the way I was?

"I-If the only other way is to kill the boy—" I began, before Leliana cut across me.

"Murder a child? Really?" She folded her arms over her chest, her blood-spattered armour lent an oily sheen by the fire, and her face was hard as porcelain. "I don't like this talk of blood magic, but—"

"Two wrongs don't make a right!" Alistair protested.

Behind him, Sten shifted subtly… or as subtly as someone of his size could. I looked at him, hoping somehow that all his silent focus might result in a pearl of balanced philosophy. He inclined his head, acknowledging my attention, and offered his opinion.

"It is an abomination," he said simply. "The child obviously lacks the strength necessary for a mage. Either it dies now, or later."

I had the horrible sense of my stomach dropping into my boots.

"My son is not an 'it'!" Isolde cried, and I almost expected her to start a tirade on the temerity of bringing a qunari into her home—she seemed to be drawing breath for it—but instead she shook her head violently. "Connor is blameless in this, do you not see? He should not have to pay the price!"

Things were heading in circles again. I knew, if something wasn't done fast, we'd still be arguing about this when Connor grew bored with hiding.

I looked at Alistair, shamed by the prickles of guilt crawling down my back. His stance was slumped, his wounded shoulder heavily favoured, and he returned my gaze with dusty, wretched hopelessness.

"I wouldn't normally suggest killing a child," he said quietly. "But…."

Highly charged emotion began to give way to shouting among the others. Ser Perth was trying to convince Bann Teagan that the arlessa should not be allowed to sacrifice herself and that, rather, he should give his life if it meant the chance to save the arl's family. Some of the other knights were offering theirs. Before long, I thought sourly, they'd be fighting over the privilege.

"There has to be another way," I said, though I didn't know where to look for one.

Jowan was standing dumbly in the middle of the floor, head down and hands half-hidden in the sleeves of his robe. I looked at Morrigan, who appeared to be watching the back-and-forth of the argument with interest.

"You said there would have to be more mages," I reminded her. "How many more?"

She blinked, wresting her attention from the bickering nobility and giving me a small frown. "Several, depending upon their power. And lyrium. A great deal of lyrium."

Jowan glanced up, overhearing us. He nodded glumly.

"Almost an entire stockroom's worth," he said, and the words seemed to chime against some memory. He stopped, mouth half-open, and eyes narrowing speculatively. "They, uh, they would have everything you need at the Circle Tower. Whether the First Enchanter would agree to help, of course, is another matter. Irving, er… doesn't take kindly to blood magic, in any form. They might demand the boy be… you know."

I wrinkled my nose. Executing their own? Where I came from, we'd always assumed the magi looked after each other.

"It's true," Alistair added. "Mages are tested for their ability to resist demons. They call it the Harrowing. If they fail— well, that's where the templars come in."

It seemed like an unnecessary cruelty, and I was about to comment on the fact, when a thought struck me with all the beauty of a spring sunrise.

The treaties… from the archive. Arl Eamon might be in no state to help us use them, but they still had status, didn't they? Sure, Alistair and I were the only two left in the country, but we _were_ Grey Wardens.

"What if we made them help? Compelled them? We… we have the treaties, right? You said one's for the Magi."

Alistair's expression shifted as he lit on the thread of my idea. "_That_ is a good point. Technically, the treaty only requires them to aid against the Blight, but—"

"Then we'll convince them," I said briskly, and in that moment I believed it. "How far is it to the Tower? Could we get there quickly?"

"It's at least a day's journey each way…." Alistair frowned doubtfully. "I don't know if Connor would remain passive that long."

Hearing her son's name, Lady Isolde broke from arguing with Teagan.

"What is this?" she demanded coldly.

Alistair winced, shying from meeting her gaze. She barely looked at me.

"The Circle Tower." I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. "If we could get there and petition the mages for help… the demon might be defeated without resorting to blood magic."

I could hear my voice thinning as I spoke. The room was growing quiet, every pair of eyes turning to me. I felt their scrutiny, their disbelief. Part of me knew it was a silly, desperate idea… that same part of me that wanted to slink away into the shadows, ashamed of trying to assert authority where I deserved none. But I didn't have the luxury of doubting myself anymore, and I stood my ground, refusing to give in to the weakness.

"Y-You said Connor comes back to himself," I said, meeting Lady Isolde's stony expression. "How long do those bouts last?"

She blinked, and I wondered if I could trust her to tell me the truth.

"I… I don't know. It is hard to say. Sometimes no more than a few minutes but, other times, many hours. After the first attack on the village, he hid in his room all day. We… we thought it was over, until we tried to help him, and the demon—" She broke off, reaching for Bann Teagan's arm. "Teagan? Do you think it's possible?"

He shook his head, his face grim and tightly drawn. "It might be, but… it is a tenuous chance."

Well, I supposed, why _should_ they trust my judgement?

"We'd have to move fast," Alistair said, and I knew he sounded so much more believable than I had, "but we have the means to persuade the Circle to help. They have an obligation to the Grey Wardens."

Teagan frowned. "You mean to use the treaties then, Alistair?"

"If we can. If Merien thinks… uh, well…."

He glanced at me, his bloodied, dirty face full of complexities. It was a gesture of loyalty, yes, but also one of fear. He was just as afraid of what we might have to do as I was… and just as afraid of taking the lead.

"I believe it's worth a try," I said, as firmly as I could. "But there should be… preparations, just in case."

I turned to Morrigan, and saw the recognition of what I was asking in her eyes. She nodded curtly, and it was hard to tell whether determination or disapproval most marked her face.

"If Connor becomes… hostile again… you know what you need to do, don't you?"

That ochre-gold gaze hardened, but she inclined her head. I let out a long breath, too tense for relief, but tinged with a seed of hope.

"Good. Sten?" I sought the second most unnerving set of eyes in the room, and found the qunari's expression as impenetrable as ever. "I would like you to stay too. If anything happens—"

"I understand," he said, and I hoped Lady Isolde did not fathom the depth of meaning conveyed in those simple words.

"Thank you."

"And what about me?" Leliana asked crisply. I gathered from the coolness of her tone that she _did_ know exactly what had been meant.

I glanced at Alistair. He was wounded, exhausted… as were we all. My head reeled gently with the tatters of ideas—fast horses, breakneck gallops that might get us there and back again in double time—but I didn't know if they'd work. If I'd thought for a moment I wouldn't have been thrown out on my backside the minute I arrived, I'd have volunteered to go alone.

"You should stay," I told her. "If Connor doesn't remain passive, then—"

"Neither of you are fit enough for such a journey!" Leliana complained. "It is madness."

"Is it?" Lady Isolde demanded. "Madness, to try to save my son? My family?"

The two women stared at each other for a moment across the cold expanse of the flagstones, and Leliana was the first to look away.

"Forgive me, my lady," she murmured, lowering her gaze. "But…."

"We'll at least _try_," I said, my voice gaining firmness. "Connor's life is worth that much."

There was a tense, uneasy silence. I wondered if any of them knew that what might sound like bravery was born completely out of fear.


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N:Thanks as ever to my fearless readers and reviewers! As a heads-up, over the next couple of chapters I'll be playing fast and loose with the events of the Circle Tower. You've been warned. Reviews are, as always, extremely welcome, though - as you all know - FoD is my downtime; something I write purely because I enjoy it. I think, judging by the number of faves and alerts going on, several of you are enjoying it too... which is great! _

_~Anna___

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**CHAPTER TWELVE**

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Deciding to travel to the Circle Tower was one thing. Determining how to get there, however, was entirely another matter. The cliff path—the fastest route to get from Redcliffe back onto the Highway, which led right up to the shores of Lake Calenhad—meant a two-day round trip on foot, and it was highly unlikely we had that long.

Two of Ser Perth's men were sent to examine the possibility of fresh horses from the arl's stables, but reported back queasily that the majority were either dead or in no state for such a journey.

I frowned thoughtfully, thinking of the rows of little quays and jetties, fringed with smokehouses, down by the lakeside.

"What about going straight across the lake?" I asked. "Would that be quicker?"

"Across?" Bann Teagan stared at me. "By boat, you mean?"

I glanced at the men around me, and the looks of surprise on their faces. Perhaps I'd just said something stupid.

"Well… it's a fishing village, isn't it?"

"It's a long way," Alistair said doubtfully. "For a small boat. And that's if we could even find one to carry us, and someone who knows the waters. The lake's pretty treacherous."

I nodded. Stupid idea, obviously.

"But," he added, a speculative light touching his eyes. "It _would_ be quicker."

Teagan sighed. "All right. Murdock would be bound to know if there's anyone who can help. Get yourselves back down to the village, and tell him I'll pay double the charter for any man willing to guide you."

"Right."

Alistair pulled himself up to something vaguely approaching attention, the tightness around his eyes relaying the trouble he must have been having with that arrow wound.

We said brief farewells. None of it really seemed real, and Maethor whined pitifully when I told him to stay with Teagan. I patted his head and told him he was a good dog, which earned me a wag of that stumpy tail, but it was hard to leave him behind. The mabari was the only one there—apart from Alistair, perhaps—who I didn't think was looking at me as if I was running away.

It was my imagination, my guilt… nothing more. I forced myself to believe that, and loped after Alistair, scurrying a bit to keep up as we left the great hall.

I heaved in a lungful of air as we stepped out into the courtyard, relieved to be back in daylight, despite the vestiges of bloodshed on the stones. The gates were open—Ser Perth's men had come this way, no doubt—so at least we wouldn't have to negotiate the route back to the village through cobwebs and choked walls of dust.

We stopped at the sound of running feet coming up behind us, but before we could draw blades a familiar voice called out.

"Wait! Wait… I'm coming with you!"

Leliana jogged to a halt at the top of the steps, the sunlight threading flares of gold through her red hair, and those bold eyes narrowed against the brightness. With a bow slung over her shoulder and Owen's hastily tweaked leather armour neatly tapered to her slim curves, she didn't look like the sort of woman it was sensible to refuse.

I glanced at Alistair. He sighed wearily, obviously not prepared to argue.

"Fine. If we can find a big enough boat."

_**~o~O~o~**_

By the time we got back down into the village, part of me was almost hoping we wouldn't be able to find passage across the water. I'd forgotten how big Lake Calenhad looked… and boats were, frankly, either things I'd seen in books, or giant wooden monsters up at the docks, whose creaking hulls were like moveable walls.

I tried not to think about it, just as I tried to ignore that other, darker hope that nestled within me. _Maybe Connor will turn again while we're gone_, it whispered, that thin and ghastly voice that I didn't want to believe was part of who I was. Maybe the others would have to deal with him, and I wouldn't be called upon to choose… or to kill.

The village was buzzing with a strange mix of jubilation and bitterness. Those who weren't resting were drinking, or grieving, or building pyres. Smoke stained the sky and lent the air a greasy, tangy quality, but the people greeted Leliana like a hero.

We found Murdock and related both the plan and Bann Teagan's incentive. His great, bushy brows drew together, those hooded eyes narrowing before he gave a curt nod and growled out an assent.

"Aye, I know just the man… if he's still sober."

It didn't sound all that promising, but we were hardly blessed with an abundance of alternatives. Murdock agreed to find our captain, and suggested we saw Mother Hannah to get ourselves patched up—as he put it, with a dubious glance at Alistair—before the journey.

Alistair started to say something about time being of the essence, and how we needed to hurry, but Leliana cut across him and unusually, I thought, he didn't push it.

I saw why when we got into the chantry. Mother Hannah greeted us, outstretched hands and cheek-kisses for Leliana, and grateful smiles for Alistair and me.

"I suppose I must admit that your… _subtlety_ with the truth paid off, Warden," she said, giving me an old-fashioned look. "These people have found their belief again, and their courage. But I see it has been paid for in blood."

My split lip tightened painfully as I tried to smile. The raw-edged empty tooth socket was still oozing, coating my mouth with the aftertaste of blood.

"We'd appreciate a little assistance before we leave, Mother," I said, and I explained our intention to journey to the Circle.

I kept the story of Connor's possession as brief as possible, not wanting to outline enough details of what was going on up at the castle to excite the interest of a mob, but the priest's face grew stern.

"I see," she said, guiding us to a small side chapel, and sending one of the sisters for hot water and towels. "Well, of course… all we have is at your disposal. We can at least get you cleaned up."

"Mm. Might as well try and look presentable when we meet the mages," Alistair said, grunting as he peeled off his armour.

Leliana gasped. "Oh, _Maker_…. We need to get that seen to."

"Huh?"

Buckles loosened, his leathers and the padded jack beneath mostly off, Alistair glanced down at the ripped, bloody swathe of shirt hanging from his shoulder, and the gory nub of arrow shaft still sticking out of the torn flesh at the top of his arm. He gulped, and started to turn a very pale shade of whitish-green.

"Wow. That's… that's a lot of blood," he observed woozily. "Um. Is it all mine?"

Mother Hannah, with well-versed and swift efficiency, called for more hot water, cloths, and needle and thread. Redcliffe might not have had mages, but the chantry sisters did possess a certain expertise with battle wounds… that much they'd had to learn in recent weeks, I supposed.

Removing the remnants of the arrow was simple enough. There was a sharp knife, more blood, and a certain degree of tooth-gnashing and stifled yelling.

Alistair was fairly brave about it, though I suspected the number of women dancing attendance on him might have had something to do with that. Leliana's skills, once again, knew no bounds. Not only was she the hero of the people, the rescuer of the abandoned and the saviour of the downtrodden, but she turned out to have a very neat and tidy hand when it came to stitching.

I wanted to make myself useful, but there didn't seem to be much for me to do, so I went to wash my face and hands, clean up our armour as best I could, and scrounge Alistair a clean shirt from the chantry's pile of charitable garments meant to outfit the dispossessed. My mind didn't stray far from what might be happening at the castle, and nagging doubts assailed me. Were we doing the right thing?

_**~o~O~o~**_

By the time Murdock came to find us, we were as presentable as we were going to get. Alistair was pale and shadow-eyed, though all sewn up and shooting grateful looks at Leliana. She brushed away the thanks, muttering that one picked up skills when one travelled, and it was nothing more than that.

I kept my curiosity to myself. Back home, I'd fetched and carried for the older women enough times when one of the boys had done something stupid. I'd seen my share of bloody faces, of knife and bottle scars, and I'd boiled water and washed wounds, and held bowls when all that blood and pain brought on the inevitable retching. But, for all the kitchen-table doctoring we were used to in the alienage, we didn't see the damages of battle… of properly wielded weapons that were actually designed to kill.

Leliana had, I'd have wagered, and it made me wonder all the more about what life she must have left behind her when she joined the cloister. What life she'd fled from, perhaps.

Outside the chantry, Murdock's captain was waiting for us. His name was Wulff and he was, the mayor said, the best skipper in the village. Thirty years on the water, and the lake had blessed him, or so people said. As I was to learn, living so close to such a large body of water lent Redcliffe's inhabitants a certain poetic reverence when it came to the lake, and tempered it with a healthy respect.

I expected to see a great, grizzled bear of a man, but Wulff was small, wiry, and red-faced, skin blasted to a crumpled, rough canvas by years of work out on the water. His eyes were perpetually squinting as if to catch the edge of the horizon, and his red-knuckled hands always seemed clenched on the cords of an invisible net. He even moved with wary circumspection, that bony frame bowed and head always at a slight angle, as if he was sniffing us out.

I tried to recall whether I'd seen the man fighting last night, but I couldn't place him, and guessed he must have been in the chantry… or he had a talent for melting into the background.

Wulff looked the three of us over critically.

"Hmph." He snorted, and turned to Murdock. "These be they, aye?"

Murdock nodded. "Aye."

"Aye," Wulff echoed, shooting me a disparaging look. "Well, we'd best get a move on. Murdock says you need to reach the Tower."

"Yes," Alistair began. "We—"

Wulff held up a thin, crooked hand. "Then let's no' stand around jawing, lad. You'll want to get a move on. And no extra weight, you hear me?"

With that, he turned and stalked off down towards the lake. We exchanged glances, but followed meekly on behind.

The village was a gutted, desiccated wreck. I hadn't appreciated how bad the damage had been but, as we passed the husks of houses and storefronts—their timbers cannibalised for barricades, and many of their owners quite possibly already on pyres—I saw how much it was going to take to put this place right. My mind drifted to Lothering, lying defenceless against the oncoming horde, and I wondered how far north the darkspawn had already travelled… how many places they had tainted and destroyed.

Had we really done Redcliffe any favours by saving it from the undead?

The lake filled my vision then, spilling out ahead as we came down the slope, and it was an impressive sight. Golden sunlight split the water into a thousand glistening, molten planes, reflections flaring back against the red rocks and setting the coarse dirt ablaze with colour. Smokehouses, gutters' quays, little wooden jetties, the spooled-up clutter of ropes and nets and, of course, boats—their dry bellies hauled up on the earth like sad, ownerless, dead things—fringed the shore. It was all just so much bigger than I remembered it being in the moonlight.

Wulff strode on ahead. A strapping great lad who looked faintly familiar—he'd been fighting last night, I thought, and I assumed he was some sort of son or grandson—stood by one of the jetties, a mooring rope in his hands. There was indeed a boat. Later, I would learn the fishermen called them dories although, at that point, I couldn't have distinguished between a dinghy and a clinker if my life had depended upon it. All I saw was a wooden shell of about fifteen feet in length, slung low in the water. Oars nestled in the rowlocks, rough wooden benches crossed its innards, and what I thought of as the pointy end rose up in a large curve, decorated with a very ornately carved fish. Unevenly worn off paint showed that, once, the fish had been picked out in red and gold, its bulbous eyes a bright, staring green.

"Oh, isn't it _pretty_?" Leliana exclaimed.

Wulff headed down to the jetty, waving vaguely at us to follow, with all the arrogant insouciance that suggested he didn't care whether we did or not.

I tried to nudge my unwilling feet into action. Leliana was still prattling cheerfully about the way the light caught the water and how it reminded her of the most wonderful seafood dish she'd once had in Orlais. Alistair made his way down to the jetty and started to toss the few supplies we were bringing with us—the leather satchel containing those all-important treaties, for one thing—into the keel.

"All right?" he prompted, glancing back at me.

I stepped tentatively down to the water's edge. Wulff was muttering to the lad, gesturing towards the northerly side of the lake, and the horizon. In the distance, shrouded by the haze of sunshine and slight mist, I thought I could make out the Circle Tower itself, looming skywards. There was a strong smell of fish, almost worn into the boat's timbers.

Leliana breezed past me and hopped delicately into the dory. I watched it rock and sway as she did so, very aware of the sound of water lapping against the jetty, and against the shoreline. That, and the creak of timbers, and the distant cries of gulls, echoing on the rocks.

"Er." I cleared my throat. "We're not going to sink, are we? Or get attacked by… things? I mean, how big do the fish get here?"

A grin spread across Alistair's face, but quickly softened.

"Big enough. You're not—oh, you _are_, aren't you? Scared of water?"

"No," I said, too quickly, pouncing on denial like a cat on a mouse. "No! Not… water in general. Just, um, that this is quite a _lot _of… deep…. Er. I-I can't swim," I finished lamely.

Wulff clapped his lad on the arm, then nodded to the boat. The boy got in, taking up the huge pair of oars as if they were nothing but toothpicks, as the old man stepped in behind him and settled on the furthest bench. He glanced over his shoulder at Alistair, wizened red face a picture of barely concealed irritation.

"Come on, boy! The elf comin' or not?"

Alistair's smile stiffened and then faded.

"The Grey Warden," he called, without turning around, "will be right with us. Come on," he added, lowering his voice for my benefit. "You won't have to swim. It'll be fine."

The sun picked at the sandy gold in his hair, and his eyes held both encouragement and a hint of tired pleading. I sighed.

Alistair was, in my opinion, a far more believable Grey Warden than I could ever have been. I didn't doubt that he'd have much more luck petitioning the magi than me, but I also knew I couldn't leave him to go alone.

After all, if we were going to be the treasonous dregs of an outlawed order, we might as well do it together.

_**~o~O~o~**_

It took me a while to get used to the rhythm of the dory. Wulff sat hunched up at the bow, barking out orders to the boy—Elwyn, as he stutteringly introduced himself when Leliana asked—and muttering under his breath.

The little boat lurched and clipped and, though the lake was calm and the day virtually without wind, it seemed to me as if the water tugged at the dory's shallow hull in a hundred different ways. Every moment brought fresh instability, and peering over the side at the murky deepness did little to soothe my nerves.

Alistair, in his usual helpful manner, recounted the stories he'd heard as a child, about the horrible things that dwelt in the lake's darkest corners. Monsters as big as a man, with teeth like butcher's knives, just waiting for the unwary to swim by….

"Huh." Wulff grunted, unexpectedly favouring us with a direct acknowledgement of our presence. "It be they bleedin' mages. Things they dump in our lake. Wuz a kiddie got her arm near snatched off las' summer. 'Twas a pikehead grown to seven feet long. 'Orrible bugger. We 'ad 'im, though, din't we, boy?"

"Aye," Elwyn agreed, still rowing.

He didn't speak much, I noticed; just kept pulling the oars back in stroke after stroke, his heavy muscles bunching and cording, and his solid, expressionless face staring out at the water, and the shore receding behind us. There was something faintly unnerving about the lad, really… though not as unnerving as looking out at the lake's breadth, and thinking I could see things rippling beneath the surface.

We fell silent, at least until the dark, huddled shape of the castle loomed up on the ridge, far above us, and all three of us found ourselves glancing towards it. Watching… wondering. Hoping, perhaps. Leliana's lips moved softly—framing some soundless prayer, I imagined—and then she turned away, gazing out at the water and the far shore instead. There was such a terrible melancholy in her face; as if she felt such sympathy with those we'd left up there that it caused her true, physical pain.

Alistair cleared his throat, cutting through the repetitive rhythms of oars splashing, and Wulff's mumbling.

"So, have you had a chance to look at the treaties yet?"

I winced. "Not really. Well… uh, a bit, maybe."

The truth was not especially palatable. Morrigan had caught me with the papers the last night we'd camped along the Highway, before we reached Redcliffe. _She_ knew. I could still hear her brittle, tinkling laugh.

_You can't read a word of those, can you?_

I'd blinked, blustered, and protested. _Of course I can! I… I mean, they're just a bit…. Well, they're very old. _

It hadn't fooled her.

True, I could read well enough, but the letters and figures Mother had taught me to reckon were nothing like the ornate calligraphy and archaic, official language of the treaties. Their ancient vellum was loaded with flowery signatures and thick, waxy seals… and it made about as much sense to me as spilled ink mopped up with a dishrag.

"Do they really still hold true, though?" I peered at Alistair across the dory's shallow keel. "I mean… they're hundreds of years old. The mages, the dwarves… will they really keep to bargains signed that long ago?"

"I think so." He nodded thoughtfully, a look of weary pride touching his face. "For the Grey Wardens, anyhow. We might not be as strong as we once were, but they still respect us."

The hint of pride started to congeal, and Alistair frowned. I imagined he'd stumbled on the difference between the 'us' that was the order—in a heraldic, abstract sense, redolent of glory and victory—and the 'us' that was him and me, soon to be standing in front of the First Enchanter in scruffy armour and waving a wallet of mouldy documents.

I glanced at Leliana, thinking that at the very least her gracious manners and battle-maiden looks might weigh in our favour. She appeared to be dozing, head delicately bowed and eyes hooded. I couldn't blame her. When this was over, I'd promised myself, I was going to sleep for a month.

"I hope you're right," I murmured, my gaze slipping back to Alistair. He was starting to look a bit better than he had earlier, though the strain of the past few days showed plainly. "How's the shoulder?"

He flexed it experimentally and curled his lip. "Ow…. Yep, still there. How about you?"

I snorted. Yes, we'd make a fine impression: two battle-weary warriors and an elven wench with a fat lip.

"I'll live," I said. "My blisters are a lot better, anyway."

He chuckled dryly and, for a moment, seemed to consider asking something more of me, but no questions came. The sun reflected back off the rippling water, warming me, and I touched my fingers absently to the chain at my neck, grounding myself with the feel of the smooth metal there. My ring, my pendant… everything that had been, and was yet to be.

I looked out at the wide expanse of the lake, every shift of the water changing that mutable landscape, breaking its translucent surface into innumerable new planes, new possibilities.

Whether Alistair was right about the treaties or not, I realised, we were all there was behind them now. With Arl Eamon lying sick—and likely to die, in all probability, even if we managed to save Connor—any vague, hopeful notion I'd had of allowing someone else to handle the politics had completely evaporated.

We were on our own, and the things we were facing had never seemed more insurmountable.

I rested my hand on the smooth-worn wood of the dory's side, and watched the water slip darkly by as we continued our slow, relentless edge towards the Circle Tower.

We were making good time, as far as I could judge, though the pace felt so leisurely that at times I wondered whether walking wouldn't have been quicker. It was far too easy to allow myself to be lulled by the boat's gentle rocking and, like Leliana, to give into the numbing fatigue and just… rest. I think, eventually, we all grabbed a few minutes' sleep—or the next best thing to it, at any rate.

As the village and the shoreline slipped away, and the edges of the world grew thin and flat, bounding us only with more water, and the walls of red rock that held the lake in check, I grew nervous. The boat felt extremely small and fragile, and Wulff rose up from his hunched position, perched like a bird in the bow and peering keenly ahead.

I didn't realise it at first, but the emptiest stretches of the lake were the most dangerous. Knife-edged rocks, odd eddies of currents, and whatever else might lurk down there… none of it boded well. As if to emphasise that point, the sun shrouded itself in wisps of grey, and clouds boiled over the horizon. A slight but cold breeze whipped at the water, and Wulff began to bark orders at Elwyn, navigating a fresh path across whatever maps he held in his head.

The dory lurched and rocked, and the rhythm of the oars quickened, Elwyn grunting with the effort. Alistair's offer to help was summarily rebuffed, and Wulff didn't even have the grace to pretend it was on account of his wound.

"No good," he growled. "You don't know the rhythm of this water, boy, an' it don't know you. Best tha' sits quiet, aye?"

I suppressed the urge to smile at Alistair's indignant expression and looked away, ahead of us to where the Circle Tower could now plainly be seen: a great, single spire, jutting blackly against the dimming sky.

_**~o~O~o~**_

The Tower had not always been on an island. Once, it had been an important node on the Imperial Highway, and the broken white ribs of that familiar road still ran up towards it, though the lake had swallowed the edges of the land.

As we drew closer, I could see it was no fairytale tower, either—no sleek and solitary column, as it looked from the distance. The place was huge; an enormous, hulking building that owed much to the Tevinter architecture I'd seen at Ostagar. Briefly, the similarity to the Tower of Ishal roused unpleasant memories, and I forced them back into the shadows, where they belonged.

The main body of the tower rose skywards in a great bulk of stone. At its foot clustered several other, smaller buildings, and rings of walls that encircled the grounds. Later, I'd learn there were beautiful gardens, servants' quarters… even a long, low hut where one of the old enchanters had kept breeding pairs of falcons. The place was an entire community, almost a village within itself. At the time, I was just awed into silence. The Tower looked so dark and quiet that it frightened me, and I couldn't think for all the memories and associations of magic that still clung on from my childhood.

When I was little, a girl a year or so younger than me had been found to have magic. I could see her behind my eyes—a dark, sharp-faced child with few friends—and I reached out into the past for her name. Ari Surana. That was it. I'd been too young to pay much attention, but there had been murmurings over the girl's head for weeks before they came to take her away. I never even knew what was happening until that day. We didn't speak of it, as if it was something shameful… it _was_, really. Her mother wept in the street, and her father grew tight-lipped and silent after it was all over. No one spoke of her anymore, like she'd never even been born.

A while later, the old couple moved into the floor above us. We barely knew them to speak to, not that they had much to say. I thought of Lady Isolde's words—her tainted blood, with its threat of power—and wondered if magic really was a curse that passed that way, slipping from generation to generation like thin hair or short legs, always waiting to rise unexpectedly in a child.

My ponderings were interrupted, as usual.

"Something's not right," Alistair announced, leaning out to the side, craning for a better view of the Tower.

The boat rocked gently under us, and I held on to the rough wooden bench beneath me. "What d'you mean?"

I squinted, following his gaze. There was a muggy, hazy feel to the afternoon air, as if the greying of the sky had fallen down to earth, dropping over everything like an oily mist. Elwyn's steady oars were bringing us up on the eastern side of the island, and I could see across to the far shore of the lake. Here, at last, the seemingly endless walls of red rock broke and, as if hollowed out of the cliff, there was a small settlement. It wasn't much; just a few buildings huddled together under the broad span of the Highway, fringing the shore like the lake's mud-washed leavings. Still, there were people there. There was a small boat, hauled up by the jetty, and… templars, in armour. I frowned. Did they usually stand guard over the ferry? Or was something really wrong? Either way, they'd seen us, and they were waving us in to the dock.

"Eh." Wulff bared his teeth in a mirthless, cynical grimace. "'Tis a welcome committee."

His words dripped with scorn, and I wondered how much the people of Redcliffe usually had to do with the Tower and its guardians. Wulff's voice seemed to hold a whiff of something more than just suspicion, but my mental images of disputed territorial rights over the lake (did apprentices ever try to escape that way? They must be tempted to, surely….) were brushed aside by nerves. I glanced at Alistair.

"This is your area, isn't it? Templars?"

He grimaced. "Well, technically, I never— I mean, you're not exactly supposed to _leave_. So, er… it might be one of things it's best not to mention."

Great. Now he told me.

I probably didn't look terribly impressed, because he gave me a weak, sickly smile.

"Oh, come on… it could be worse. We could have brought Morrigan."

I snorted at that, as the boat scythed gently towards the dock. Given the circumstances of our arrival here—and everything I'd left laid at the witch's feet back at the castle—it was pitch-black humour, but I couldn't help laughing. It wasn't just the thought of rolling up into the middle of a garrison of templars with an obvious apostate in tow… but how outraged I could imagine her being if they'd even _dared_ lay a finger on her.

The snigger died away, though, as I thought about it properly. It wasn't something we'd really encountered so far, but we would at some point, wouldn't we? Out of the Wilds, as Alistair had said the day Flemeth entrusted her to us, Morrigan _was_ an apostate.

All right, so the people of Redcliffe had hardly been in any state to turn away help, whatever form it came in, but if we were truly on our own—if we truly needed to bring the Bannorn to our side against the coming Blight—then we would need to think very carefully about our allies, and how the world perceived them.

Dangerous friends, I reflected, might end up doing us more damage than the darkspawn ever could.

The dory bumped against the jetty, wrenching me back down through the disjointed clouds of thoughts that kept filling my head. I needed sleep. Proper sleep… as did we all.

I looked up, and found an old man leaning down to us, readying to help Wulff with the mooring rope. They were probably of a similar age, though beyond that the difference outweighed the sameness. This human was simply but neatly dressed, his hair was trimmed and brushed, and his face, though weathered, lacked Wulff's sunburnt gruffness.

"Bad time you picked to come here," he observed, helping to tie the boat. "Travellers, is it? We don't usually get folks come right across the lake."

Leliana clambered up on the wooden jetty, gracefully accepting the hand the old man extended to help her. Across the patchy grass slope that ran down to the shore, I could see two templars striding officiously towards us, though they didn't seem to be in a hurry.

"We need to get to the Circle Tower," Leliana said, as she brushed herself down.

I admired the subtle inflection in her voice. It was girlish and enquiring and, combined with the Orlesian lilt, enough to have the old man proffering information in a heartbeat.

"Oh, and good luck to you, missy! Not lettin' anyone across, they ain't. Even impounded my boat… my Lissie. Named for my grandmum, she was," he added regretfully. "I'm Kester, the ferryman—leastwise, I was. No one's been allowed across for days now, though. Out of a job, I am. Poor old Kester…."

I wondered whether I'd been too hasty in attributing Leliana with the skill to get the old boy talking. It appeared he couldn't actually stop.

Alistair frowned as he hauled himself up onto the jetty. "Is something wrong up at the tower, then?"

"Oh, I couldn't say." Kester shrugged and shook his head. "Anyhow, they don't tell me nothing. But, if I know them mages, I'm better off keeping out of their business. If I had to guess, I'd guess it had to do with magic… but then the tower's always got something to do with magic, hasn't it?"

The way he said it made it sound like a dirty word; I could almost hear the temptation to spit. I was last out of the boat, made clumsy by its rocking and pitching. Alistair stretched down and lent me his hand and, as I pulled myself up by that broad, calloused palm, I could feel the strength of Kester's gaze.

"Oh-ho-ho!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "Well, look at you! I've never seen one of you knife-ears dressed up like the king of Ferelden before. You made good for yourself, eh?"

I let go of Alistair's hand, momentarily disorientated by the feel of solid ground under my feet again. There was a brief, dry, uncomfortable silence, then fatigue prodded me towards sarcasm, and I smiled thinly at the old man.

"Yes," I said, glancing down at my stained, beaten leathers. "I made good."

The armour might have been second-rate, but he was right; I was an unusual enough sight for an elf. The shem blinked, then licked his lips hurriedly.

"Oh, no, I don't mean no offence. I know I shoot my mouth off…." He raised one hand and gesticulated vaguely towards me. "I'm just not used to your kind trussed up all fancy, that's all."

Alistair cleared his throat, and I wasn't sure if it was embarrassment or a warning. I didn't meet his eye. Instead, I bit back on all the sharp-edged things I wanted to say, and nodded towards Wulff and Elwyn. The lad looked exhausted, and the rough, red welts of oarsman's blisters marked his enormous hands.

"I see there's a tavern here. D'you think you could help these gents to a pint and a warm place to sit? Beer's on us," I added, as Kester's face split into a broad grin. "For yourself, too, of course."

After a quick rummage in the scrip Bann Teagan had handed over, and a bit of clinking, Alistair drew out a couple of silvers and gave them to the ferryman.

"Well, much obliged," Kester said, beaming. "Much obliged indeed, I must say. Your type don't usually give my type the time of day," he added, looking at me with a peculiar light in his eyes.

It was as good as a kick in the stomach. I opened my mouth, then shut it again, and wondered if the old bugger had actually meant to whittle me down to an inch in height.

Still, as Wulff and Elwyn were gratefully heading off towards the tavern—no doubt to have all the gossip regarding these strange travellers prised from them—the templars were bearing down on us. My back stiffened with the inbuilt reaction to large men in armour… particularly those who, like one of the humans coming towards us, had their faces obscured by blank steel helms.

"Hoi! You there!" The other templar—a young man with broad, rather doughy features—pointed imperiously at us. "What d'you lot think you're up to?"

"We need to see—" Alistair began, barely getting the first few words out before they were trampled.

"You're not looking to get across to the tower, are you? Because I have strict orders not to let _anyone_ pass!"

"But it's important that we see the First Enchanter, at once."

The templar folded his arms across his breastplate, gauntlets clinking against the embossed image of the flaming sword of mercy. I doubted compassion was going to be this man's strong suit.

"No," he said, with altogether far too much satisfaction.

"You don't understand," Leliana put in. "There are lives at stake here! We've been travelling for hours to get here, to—"

"Then you'd better turn around and start travelling back, hadn't you?" The human's wide face spread into a fleshy smile, smug and tight. "Wouldn't want to be out on the lake after sundown. There's some nasty things in that water."

This was going nowhere, and I was fed up with obstructions.

"We're Grey Wardens," I snapped. "We've come to seek the assistance of the mages against the darkspawn. If you don't let us cross—"

It was a desperate gambit. For all I knew, they might have tossed us in chains then and sent word to Loghain to start bagging up the bounty money. The Circle might have been well-known for its impartiality in most things, but the same didn't necessarily extend to the Chantry.

However, the templar just arched his brows, turned to his colleague and, arms still folded over his chest like a busty fishwife, pulled an incredulous face.

"Oh, a Grey Warden, is it? Are you?"

Anger started to twist in my gut. I'd known it would be like this… and why shouldn't it? Some scrap of a knife-eared wench, claiming to be something even _she_ didn't fully believe she was.

The templar's expression hardened as he turned back to face me.

"Prove it."

I met his gaze, inch for inch. "Alistair, show him the treaties."

I didn't blink, didn't look away. Neither did the human. I heard the rattle of the leather wallet, the crinkle of ancient vellum and parchment… smelled the smell of mouldy paper and ancient must.

The templar broke eye contact, glancing down at the documents Alistair thrust towards him. He scanned the page briefly and peered at the thick seal on the bottom of it, before pushing the parchment away unceremoniously.

"Yes? You know, I have some documents, too. They say I'm the Queen of Antiva. What do you think of that?"

Alistair—still grappling with shuffling the treaties back into their wallet—made a small noise of disbelieving irritation.

"I'd say your armourer hasn't done justice to your figure," I snapped. "I thought most queens were female."

The second templar sniggered, the noise echoing from within his bucket-like helmet. I could barely even make out the suggestion of eyes behind the narrow slit in the visor, and it unnerved me.

The reaction evidently didn't go down too well with his friend. I earned myself a squint-eyed glare, and the first templar jabbed a finger at me.

"Don't question royalty. Now, go on. On your way. Right now. Go."

Holding back on the urge to rant and swear, I poked my tongue into the empty socket in my jaw, and the sudden lance of pain made me focus. I was taking a deep breath and looking for some other angle to try when Leliana spoke up again, all sweetness and soft, musical words.

"Gentlemen… I'm sure we can reach a compromise here, no? Whatever is happening in the tower, your superior surely doesn't need the extra inconvenience of you slighting such honoured guests. The Wardens and I have come directly from Redcliffe Castle, you know." She tilted her head to the side, fixing both men with those uncommonly blue eyes, and pursed her lips just a little. "I am _certain_ he would not like you to dismiss emissaries from the arl."

Clever, I thought. They definitely wouldn't know about Redcliffe's troubles from up here… they might not even have heard about Eamon's illness, and the association of nobility carried plenty of weight.

"Oh, really, eh?" The young templar shifted uneasily, but the bombast had begun to drop from his voice. "You think Greagoir would be upset with me for not letting you in, do you?"

The second man tapped him on the shoulder with one heavy gauntlet, his mumble muffled rather by his helm. "Er… Carroll?"

That pudgy face creased into an expression of crestfallen realisation, and the templar frowned.

"You know, you may have a point. He might."

"Well, then," Alistair said brightly, "we should try our best to avoid that, shouldn't we? Wouldn't want to get you into trouble."

The templar bristled. "Huh… yes. Well. Greagoir's the big guy around here. I bet he could deal with a couple of Grey Wardens. _Alleged_ Grey Wardens," he added, sneering. "All right. Come along. I suppose."


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: Thanks as ever to my intrepid readers and reviewers, here and on my blog. Real life writing stuff is currently eating much of my time, so while you've had a rash of FoD updates, I've been verrrry slow on everything else, for which I apologise. Currently, it's my intention to finish off Volume Two of Feasting on Dreams and then tie up a couple of other ongoing stories (yes, Straining at the Leash and A Father's Regret... and more of switch-hitter-Cousland) before cracking on with Volume Three*, although you know what they say about good intentions. If you are frothing at the mouth for more (or less) of a particular story, or you have any other opinions to share, do delurk and do so, 'cos I'm just pottering on my happy way here... *grin* _

_*Um... yes, long fiction is long. _

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**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

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Up close, the Circle Tower was an imposing sight. The weight of the stonework, the sheer scale of the place… but what struck me most of all was the feel of it. Something was wrong. Very wrong. It clung to every breath we took as Carroll rowed us across in Kester's rickety little ferryboat.

With that massive spire rising into the grey sky, the late afternoon sun gilding the water all around us and painting shadows on the ancient stones, every instinct I possessed was screaming at me to turn around. Trouble always makes itself known before it starts, and I'd grown up learning to spot it. The greasy electricity that precedes a fight, the sour taste in the moment between apathy and violence… that's what it was like, but there was nowhere to run, no upturned table or handy wall to dip behind. The Tower just kept looming larger and larger, until we were out of the boat and being led through the biggest, thickest doors I'd ever seen.

I could only imagine what it must be like to be welcomed to the tower as a guest. Dizzingly high ceilings, great pointed arches on every door and window, and so many carvings and bas-reliefs crawling over every surface that they made the place look alive. Decorative hangings and carpets in vibrant, bold colours spoke of an exoticism beyond anything I'd ever known, and I couldn't help but stare at the statues and intricate ironwork on the screens and pillars that divided the hall in which we now stood.

It took a moment—and the great, hollow clanging of those mighty doors shutting behind us—before I blinked, and truly appreciated the chaos around us.

Something wasn't just wrong. It had been going wrong for a while, and it was getting worse. There was a makeshift field hospital over in one corner of the vast room; injured men sprawled on blankets, some crying out in pain and others silently, deathly still. Templars in full armour, their faces hidden behind those square helms but their bearing grim and resolute, moved stiffly about the place and, at the centre of it all, stood a man in ornate templar armour, his grey head bare and his face etched with a haunted determination.

"…and I want two men stationed within sight of the doors at all times," he was saying, addressing a templar who stood at his side. "Do not open the doors without my express consent. Is that clear?"

"Yes, ser."

The templar saluted crisply and strode off, boots clanking against the flagstones.

"This is not good," Alistair murmured, close behind me. "Look at how those doors are barred. Are they keeping people out? Or _in_?"

I glanced at him, aware that he understood much more from this scene than I did, and the look on his face frightened me. I didn't get the chance to ask him what he meant, though, because he set his jaw and started forwards.

"Knight-Commander?"

He changed a bit in that instant, I thought, our weary, awkward Alistair. As if someone had pulled a string somewhere, tightened his joints and dragged his shoulders back and his spine straight. It was the soldier's bearing I'd seen on him before, but laced through with something else, some set of physical memories… the flash of shiny plate and the brotherhood of arms, I supposed.

Leliana and I exchanged brief looks; I could tell she saw it too, but then it wasn't as if I hadn't noticed the way she watched him. A certain… keenness of interest, perhaps. Just something I'd observed, and filed away. I could have been wrong, and it didn't matter, after all. Not at the time.

The man I took for Knight-Commander Greagoir turned and looked at us, wiry grey brows drawing together.

"Who are you?" he demanded, face darkening with the beginnings of fury. "I explicitly told Carroll not to bring anyone across the lake!"

My mouth was dry. I'd seen templars in Denerim, by ones and twos, and thought them no more than city guards in different armour. Here, they couldn't have looked more different. Against the stonework, the high walls and arched ceilings, I could see what they were meant for… the cold steel backbone of an army.

"Ser, we are Grey Wardens," Alistair said, with the slightest trace of a heel-click. "Survivors of Ostagar."

Greagoir's frown deepened. "Grey Wardens?"

"We came seeking the mages' support against the darkspawn. It—"

The frown became a scowl. "I am weary of your order's ceaseless need for men to fight the darkspawn, whether it be your right or not! In any case, you'll find no allies here. The templars can spare no men, and the mages are… indisposed."

His hard grey eyes raked quickly over Leliana and me, summarising us and probably finding us wanting, I supposed.

"I shall speak plainly," Greagoir said, his voice rough and bitter. "The tower is no longer under our control. Abominations and demons stalk the halls. The Circle is lost. The tower has fallen."

Across the room, a man prostrated on a bloodstained blanket clutched his heavily bandaged side and gave a long, rattling groan. Another templar rushed to help him, holding his comrade's head as the other coughed and hawked up a mess of bloody phlegm.

"How did it happen?" Alistair asked.

I saw him glance towards the huge double doors at the opposite end of the hall. Barred, guarded…. A horrible sense of dread washed over me, and I couldn't stop my mind from filling with thoughts of the shades we'd encountered at the castle.

"We don't know." Greagoir shook his head. "We saw only demons, hunting templars and mages alike. I realised we could not defeat them and told my men to flee."

Panic began to rise in me. A swift glance around the room counted at least twenty men… twenty survivors. Perhaps there were others elsewhere. But, if _they_ had been forced to fall back, we could surely do nothing. We'd as good as failed already. And what of Connor, of Redcliffe and everything we'd rushed to try and save? Why did everything have to be so damned complicated, anyway? I was exhausted enough for the weight of tired, angry tears to start prickling behind my eyes, and I almost didn't hear Alistair's next words.

"What can we do to help?"

My brows shot up, but no one was paying any attention to what I thought.

"There is nothing left _to _do," Gregoir said grimly. "I have sent word to Denerim, calling for reinforcements and the Right of Annulment."

"The Right of Annulment?"

I heard my own voice echo his words, confused, and I wasn't even aware I'd spoken.

The Knight-Commander gave me a look of slightly condescending surprise, as if he was somewhat taken aback that I could speak.

"Uh, this is Merien," Alistair said, apparently recalling my presence. "My fellow Grey Warden. And Leliana, our… companion."

Gregoir inclined his head; the nearest thing to pleasantries we had time for.

"The Right of Annulment gives templars the authority to neutralise the Circle of Magi," he explained. "Completely."

Leliana drew in a small, startled breath. "Oh… you mean—?"

"The mages are probably already all dead," Alistair said darkly. "If there are abominations in there, they must be dealt with… no matter what."

Greagoir nodded. "Indeed. This situation is dire. There is no alternative—everything in the tower must be destroyed. It is the only way it can be made safe again."

I stared, uncomfortably aware of my inexperience and ignorance, yet unable to quite believe what I was hearing. I thought of Morrigan… one woman, with a simple iron staff and ragged, barbarian robes, without whom our entire party would already have died a dozen times over. Fair enough, perhaps her magic was wild—dangerous, and not of the Circle's approved kind—but if she alone could wield so much power, how could the templars so easily write off the entire Tower? And how could Alistair, of all people, stand there and so readily, dumbly agree? Had he had his eyes closed for the entirety of our journey so far?

"But… the mages are not defenceless," I said. "Surely some could still be alive. If you've just shut them in there—"

"If any still live, the Maker Himself has shielded them." Greagoir shook his head ruefully. "No one could have survived those monstrous creatures. It is too painful to hope for survivors and find… nothing."

I glanced at Leliana, willing her to back me up. I could see from her face that the prospect of this wholesale destruction pained her deeply, but she wasn't disagreeing. I frowned.

"Then why wait for this Right of Annulment? Why not, I don't know, burn the place?"

The Knight-Commander gave me a look tinged with incredulous impatience.

"We must wait for reinforcements. I will not order my men to their deaths. Besides, only the grand cleric in Denerim can authorise the Annulment of the Circle."

Greagoir's lined brow furrowed deeper, eyes hardening beneath those heavy brows and giving me a faint understanding of the choice he faced. I regretted opening my mouth as I realised that here stood a man whose life was in this tower. Not only had he been forced to watch his own men die, but also the mages with whom he lived every day… and whom he now had to condemn.

"So," he said brusquely, "while the door holds, Warden, we wait. Denerim must have received our message—it cannot be much longer."

"And if they don't come?"

My voice, my words… yet I seemed so tenuously connected to myself, I could barely believe I'd spoken at all. Greagoir glared at me, but it wasn't the look of a human ready to backhand an impudent elf. The Circle, I recalled, treated elven mages as equals. Where I came from, that was the stuff of myths, though we didn't regard it as enough of an advantage to balance out giving up a child.

His mouth framed the start of a word, but the sound was just a dry rattle, a defeated breath that told me he'd already pictured a future in which the grand cleric's response never came. Hope appeared to hold little comfort for the Knight-Commander, yet he could not abandon his duty. They'd die here, I realised, him and whatever was left of his men. All for some stupid sense of pride.

I pushed while I had an advantage.

"I don't believe every single mage can be dead, or… or possessed. When did this start?"

"A few days after the deputation returned from Ostagar," Greagoir said dubiously. "It all happened so quickly…. We sent word to Denerim at once, but that was ten days ago now."

Alistair made a small, sarcastic noise in the back of his throat. I could do exactly the same mental arithmetic. Allowing for how our time on the road—and those first few days in the Wilds—had distorted things, the progress of events seemed pretty clear. Loghain had deserted the field, and headed straight for Denerim, leaving any who'd survived the battle to limp away unheeded. But there were too many coincidences, weren't they? Arl Eamon's illness, this chaos at the Circle… it was hard to believe they were really unconnected, and yet we could trace no provable line between them. I glanced at Alistair, unsurprised to find his jaw set and his mouth tight.

"We don't know precisely what happened," Greagoir went on, "but I can see no way that—"

"Then let us in," I said… or perhaps dreamed I said. It didn't feel real. "Let us look for survivors. If there are none, or if we die looking, you've lost nothing. You can still rout the tower, once reinforcements arrive. Yes?"

The Knight-Commander did not appear to be a man easily robbed of words, but he stared at me, mouth open and brows raised. I could feel the surprise radiating off my companions, too, though it was Alistair who coughed diplomatically.

"Er… Merien? These abominations… they're not—"

"And what other choice do we have?" I demanded, rounding to face him. "Hm? What other hope is there for Connor, or of standing against the Blight… or Loghain?"

Alistair floundered, mouth still working over some explanation or discouragement. I didn't want to listen. I knew my weaknesses, my inexperience, and I was aware that _he_ knew far more about what might lay behind those doors than I did… but it didn't matter. Tired and hurting and irritable, I wasn't prepared to turn tail and row back to Redcliffe empty-handed. There was too much at stake.

"Well?" I snapped. "Think of Morrigan. She's one woman, but you saw how much damage she did against the undead! Do you _really _believe every single mage in there is dead, or corrupted? Isn't it worth at least looking?"

For a moment, I thought I'd overstepped the bounds of our comradeship. Alistair chewed the inside of his cheek, face screwed up in uncomfortable indecision, but then the darkness lifted from his eyes, and some kind of resolve seemed to touch his expression. He nodded, and looked at me with what I could only think of as respect… which was a little disorientating.

"You're right," he said, at last. "It is. I… I'm with you."

It was a pledge of fealty, not the acceptance of a suggestion, and I wanted to say I hadn't meant to override him, that I didn't want to jostle for leadership… but then Greagoir was looking at me, and he appeared very confused.

"Undead?" the Knight-Commander queried. "Wh— no. Never mind. I… I still think this is madness, but…. Very well, Warden. If you are set on this, I shall allow it. A word of caution, however: once you cross that threshold, there is no turning back. The great doors must remain barred. I will open them for no one until I have proof that it is safe. I will only believe it is over if the first enchanter stands before me and tells me it is so. If Irving has fallen… then the Circle is truly lost, and I will not hesitate to see it destroyed."

I bowed my head. "Thank you, Knight-Commander."

Greagoir still looked doubtful, but he nodded gruffly. Raising my head, I glanced at Leliana. She met my eye, coolly determined.

"I agree. If there is even one person in there who can be saved… that is reason enough to try. And that poor little boy…!" Compassion tugged her pale brows into a frown, but it soon gave way to a harder, more resolute expression. "We will do what we can, at least."

The edge of my mouth curled in silent thanks. Greagoir let out a terse sigh.

"Well, may Andraste lend you her courage. Maker knows you'll need it." He turned towards the far end of the hall, where two armoured templars stood guard over the great doors; that high stone arch barred with enough solid oak to raise a barn. "Terrill! These three are going through. Unbar the doors."

There was a general muttering and murmuring as we walked the length of the hall. It seemed a very long way, and the doors seemed to get taller with every step.

"That's why they make them so big," Alistair said quietly, shooting me a grim look. "Keeping things in. Every Circle Tower has doors like these. Just in case."

I winced, not sure I wanted to know what horrors merited barricades quite so impressive. The steel-blank helmets of the templars manning the doors looked down at us, any compassion in their eyes indiscernible through the narrow slits in their visors. One shook his head as the doors creaked slowly open.

"Maker watch over you," he intoned, voice echoey and muffled. "Someone'll need to."

_**~o~O~o~**_

It would be many months before I quite forgot the sound of those mighty doors closing behind us; the scrape of the bars and locks being dragged across, and the cold tolling of the knowledge that we would very likely not come out of this alive.

"Well, then," Alistair said acidly, "best get a move on, hadn't we?"

Like Redcliffe Castle, the Circle Tower was deeply unfamiliar territory to me. Everything was endless corridors, dim from cold, burned-out torches and small, high windows. The first rooms we came to seemed to be public spaces, opulent and reasonably undisturbed. I didn't know how many visitors the mages normally entertained—in my head, their whole existence was hidden by some shimmering curtain of possibilities that I'd never contemplated peering behind—but it was easy to picture grand gestures and sophisticated small talk in chambers like these. Carved wooden benches littered with cushions, and broad, square tables stood either side of a huge, ornately carved fireplace. Nothing but cold ashes on the hearth.

"It seems very… quiet," Leliana ventured.

"Mm." Alistair wrinkled his nose. "Until demons start coming up out of the floor, anyhow."

"The floor?" I blinked, confused. "What exactly—"

"Abominations can take many forms," he said, scouting through a few papers that had been abandoned on one of the tables. "Possession is not always… tidy. I might never have become a fully-fledged templar, but I've seen enough to know— well, I've seen enough. Let's put it that way."

"That's, um, not comforting," I said, peering up at the high, arched ceiling far above us. "Really, _really_ not."

Alistair gave a hollow grin. "Well, if you will go having these bright ideas…."

"Huh." I took a final glance around the room, satisfying myself that there was nothing there, fleshly or magical. "Father always said my smart mouth would get me in trouble one day. Come on. Let's keep moving."

Through another set of doors—though not quite as impressive as those the templars had barred—there lay storerooms, and more serviceable chambers. A selection of side doors seemed to lead down to undercrofts and basements, but they'd remained mercifully locked.

We were about to turn the corner when, up ahead, a noise echoed along the stones. I stiffened, hand going to my sword… though I didn't know if it would be any use against what awaited us.

"Voices," Leliana murmured, looking at Alistair. "That means people. D'you think…?"

He shrugged. "Hard to say. We need to be careful."

I wanted to ask how you could tell whether a mage was possessed, but I didn't get a chance. We'd barely gone a few more yards before—seemingly from nowhere—a ball of light fizzed from the shadows and struck the flagstones ahead of us, exploding in a shower of sparks. We splintered, all three of us diving for safety.

"Stop right there!" yelped a young, male voice, evidently trying hard to sound brave and authoritative. "Who are you?"

I rose up from the hard ground, blue spots dancing across my vision and my ears ringing. The figure before me was little more than a child and, as I squinted, I realised he was an elf. An elven mage… or an apprentice, at least.

Hands held up in front of him, he stared at us, but in a way I'd never seen another elf stare. He was afraid, yes, but there was nothing cowed about him, no trace of the bow-shouldered readiness to curl up or run that marked the denizens of the alienage. His pale blond hair hung loose, down to his shoulders, and his light green eyes were narrowed, watching every move we made. The roundness of his face, the soft jaw and dewy skin put him at no older than me—maybe even a few years younger—and told of a comfortable life… at least until whatever it was that had given him the large, mottled bruise running across his forehead.

"We… we've come from outside the tower," I said, possibly shouting a little bit over the echoing in my ears. "Looking for survivors. What happened here?"

The boy began to lower his hands. He frowned.

"But… the templars barred the doors. I thought no one—"

"We're very persuasive," Alistair said dryly, brushing himself down.

The mage's face cracked into an expression of exhausted, terrified relief. "Oh, thank the Maker…. We thought no help was coming. We…. Come with me. Come. There aren't many of us left, but… well, you'll see."

He motioned us to follow him and, as he led us along the corridor, I saw we'd entered what must the apprentice quarters. Dormitory rooms led off the hallway, their bunks in disarray and furniture rearranged into what looked horribly like barricades. I heard children crying, and more voices… more survivors? It seemed so. Either that, or we were walking straight into a trap.

I didn't even know whether abominations and demons bothered to play with their prey like that. Would they try to trick us? Or would they just kill us on sight? I was still grappling with the questions when the elven mage led us past the third dormitory and into a larger room off the main corridor. I'd seen a couple of pinched, white faces peer at us from behind huddles of blankets at we passed, but it didn't prepare me for what greeted us.

Four huge stone columns bisected the chamber. Like everything else about the tower, they'd been designed to oppress by their impressiveness, and they arched massively into the vaulted ceiling. The wide, empty expanse of the floor was inlaid with coloured tiles, describing strange, angular patterns that, for a moment, reminded me of the Tevinter carvings in the old temple at Ostagar. I'd thought then of blood, running along the worn grooves, dripping warmly from some heathen altar… here, the scent of sacrifice seemed almost as strong.

Opposite, there was another set of those tremendous doors, though the wood was not the only barrier. A sheen of light glimmered over the portal, like some great coruscating curtain. The air prickled with energy, and the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a thick, uncomfortable feel here, as if the weight of the whole tower was pressing down on us.

A small group of mages stood by the doors, and our escort called out to them.

"Kinnon! Wynne! These people have come from outside the Tower! They… they've come to help!"

The mages turned, and I saw a young man, a girl… and a familiar face. A tall woman with her grey hair pinned back in a clean, severe style, her angular features worn with years but not softened, and sharp blue eyes that widened a little as she looked at us.

"_Wynne_?" Alistair started forwards with a cough of disbelieving laughter. "Wynne! It is you! I thought—"

"Alistair?" Wynne shook her head, and then that clear, bright gaze flickered over me. "And _you_…? I-I don't believe it."

Neither did I. Of all the people I hadn't expected to meet again… and that was almost alarming. Was this really the same woman I'd met at Ostagar? The kindly mage who'd taken a moment to speak with a girl so overwhelmed by her first breath of army life that she couldn't even find her way to the mess tent? Or was it a trick?

Wynne seemed real enough, but I didn't know how you were meant to tell the difference. They seemed suspicious of us, too.

The young man at her side frowned. "Wynne, you know them? Derren," he added, looking at the elven lad who'd brought us in, "who are these people?"

"We're Grey Wardens," Alistair said, beginning to cross the chamber. "We've come to—"

"Wait!" Wynne held up a hand. "Come no further. Grey Warden or no, I will strike you down where you stand."

"But—"

"It's all right," I cut in, sensing the iron-cold fear that laced the air, and seeing the look in the mage's eye. "We've travelled from Redcliffe. We came for the Circle's help."

"And you were told that the mages were in no shape to help you, I suppose," Wynne said, nodding slowly. "So why did the templars let you in?"

"We… we asked the Knight-Commander to let us look for survivors," I said, wavering a little as that blade of a gaze scraped over me. "I-I didn't believe you could all be dead."

A thin smile tugged at the edge of her lips. "Hm. Your faith is touching, dear. We're not… not _yet_, at least. Does Greagoir plan to attack the tower?"

I swallowed heavily. "Soon. He sees no other choice. They're waiting for reinforcements… and, er…."

"He means to invoke the Right of Annulment," Alistair supplemented grimly. "There's been no word from Denerim yet, but it could be any day."

Wynne's expression tightened. "Hm. Then he thinks the Circle is beyond hope. He probably assumes we are all dead."

I frowned. "Couldn't you have asked them to open the doors? We saw the survivors. There are children in those rooms. Can't—"

"Don't you think we've tried?" Wynne stared levelly at me.

She didn't need to raise her voice, to snap or scowl. I looked blankly at her for a moment, and then understood what she meant in all its utter, awful horror.

Those great wooden doors, thick enough to bar against abominations, etched with runes and protective wards… firmly shut to even the clawing, desperate hands of children, begging for their lives. I realised then just what it was I'd seen in the Knight-Commander's face; the look of a man who has had to listen to the death screams of those he does not dare to help.

It answered my question about the dangers of trusting what I could see with my own eyes, at any rate.

"The templars have abandoned us to our fate," Wynne said coolly, as if it was nothing but a simple, reasonable, rational statement of fact. "But even trapped as we are, we have survived. If they invoke the Right, however, we will not be able to stand against them."

Silence pooled around her words. The girl who stood beside her looked at her feet, the gentle trembling of her shoulders the only sign of tears.

"There must be something we can do to help," I said, the hollow tug of nausea pulling at my gut.

Somewhere, underneath all the fatigue and the frantic pounding of panic, my alienage mind was in full flow. _What,_ it demanded, _do you think you can do? What have you already done? Locked yourself in here with the condemned! You're all going to die here, and it's all going to be _your _fault…._

"Wh… what exactly happened?" I asked, doing my best to ignore the snide little voice in my head. "How did this start?"

Wynne snorted. "Let it suffice to say that we had something of a revolt on our hands, led by a mage named Uldred. When he returned from the battle at Ostagar, he tried to take over the Circle. As you can see, it didn't work out as he planned."

"He unleashed something?" Alistair asked. "Because there's a lot of that going around lately."

I let out an inadvertent snigger. Wynne frowned. I hoped we'd all be alive long enough to explain the joke, even if it wasn't really that funny.

"I don't know what became of Uldred, but I am certain all this is his doing… and I will _not _lose the Circle to one man's pride and stupidity."

There was enough determination in her voice to bend horseshoes around.

"All right," I said, eyeing the oddly shimmering doorway. "So what do you intend?"

Wynne followed my gaze, and nodded. "I erected a barrier over the door leading to the rest of the tower, so nothing from inside could attack the children. You will not be able to enter the tower as long as the barrier holds, but I will dispel it if you join with me to save the Circle."

I glanced at Alistair, and then at Leliana who, until now, had been standing in silence behind us. She inclined her head, just as resolute as Wynne.

"Of course. I cannot believe they would just… _leave_ these people. We have to get them out."

"Greagoir will only accept the first enchanter's word that the Tower is safe," Alistair said doubtfully. "I don't suppose you know where…?"

"The Harrowing Chamber," Wynne said, her voice tight and dry. "I think. At the very top of the tower. That seems to be where the… activity is centred. With luck, we shall find Irving there."

"Then it's settled," I agreed. "You're sure the others will be safe here?"

"Petra and Kinnon will watch them," she said, casting a brief glance at the two who stood beside her. "And, if we slay all the fiends we encounter on our way, none will get by to threaten the children."

The girl, Petra, wiped her face on her sleeve and set her shoulders, nodding her agreement. I could see Derren, the elven lad, hovering at the edge of the chamber like a nervous whippet, desperate for the chance to contribute.

"I suppose that could work," I said carefully, wishing I had Sten, Morrigan and Maethor at my back.

Whatever awaited us beyond Wynne's barrier, it seemed a fairly safe assumption that it wasn't going to be an easy fight.

_**~o~O~o~**_

There was a small argument over who was going through the doors. Wynne's apprentices practically clamoured to come with her, and I heard snatches of something about an injury, but the mage refused to back down. Eventually, Petra, Kinnon, and even young Derren conceded that they should stay with the other survivors, and arrangements were made to keep the ragged group as safe as possible, once the barrier was destroyed.

I didn't know how many people the tower was usually home to, but I didn't count more than thirty mages hunkered down in the dormitories. Some were apprentices, I guessed—I was beginning to understand the differences in the colours and cuts of their robes—and there were maybe twenty children there, too. They ranged from gawky twelves and thirteens, down to little ones no more than… well, than Connor's age. I thought of him as we waited for Wynne to finish her preparations and begin dismantling the barrier. Would it have been so bad for the arlessa to send him here? So terrible for him to have a life like this?

"Are you ready?" Wynne asked, jerking me from my thoughts.

We stood before those great oaken doors, the film of light shivering over the knotted wood. To my right, Leliana was solemn-faced and still, with all the grace of a cat awaiting the hunt. At Wynne's left, Alistair was favouring his injured shoulder and looking decidedly grim.

I nodded dumbly, not quite trusting myself to speak.

The mage bent her head, a frown of concentration pinching her lined brow. She extended one long-fingered hand, palm outwards, and drew in a deep, calm breath. I felt the surge of energy coursing through her, though I didn't understand it, nor know the words to describe it.

Later, Wynne and I would share many discussions of magic and its role in the world. She would talk to me at length of mana and matter, of reality and dreams, and I would learn more from her than all the books I could ever have read.

At the time, I just felt a cold, prickling sensation skating over my skin, and everything seemed to taste of aniseed. It struck me how very different it felt to being caught in the radius of one of Morrigan's spells, but I watched the shimmering barrier dissolve, and knew that Wynne was no less powerful.

Petra, Kinnon and a couple of the other apprentices helped open the doors, and could be heard barring them securely after us as we stepped into the adjoining chamber. More high ceilings, great arching columns, and acres of grey stone… it was almost anti-climactic. I'd been expecting a sudden outpouring of demons, or some scene of hideous atrocities. Instead, there was nothing. Just an empty chamber, with empty hallways leading off it.

"This way," Wynne said, leading us to the left corridor. "It's quicker to go up the back stairs, past the laboratories."

We followed, and I was very aware that—despite her age and the ordeal that she'd suffered—Wynne's brisk pace was a little quicker than was comfortable for me. The beautifully faced stone walls (the masterwork of some Tevinter mason, I thought, even where various more modern attempts to replaster and repoint the bricks had been made) soon became a repetitive labyrinth, and I had the strong sense of turning in circles.

"So," I began, just shy of panting as we hiked after her, "this Uldred…. What can you tell us about him?"

"Uldred?" Wynne turned to look back at me. Her lips thinned, and a small frown creased the bridge of her nose. "It's uncharitable of me to speak this way, but I never liked him."

"Oh?"

"No. He was a squirrelly, twitchy sort of person. Never mentored the apprentices, never _taught_…. I don't think he cared much for the Circle, only his own advancement."

We were heading up a narrow staircase, and the stones seemed cold and clammy. A smell that reminded me of boiled cholor root—the kind of thing we used for poultices back home—seemed to seep down from somewhere.

"Well, that doesn't mean he's responsible for this," Alistair said, casting a wary look towards the top of the stairs, into the dimness beyond.

"Hmm." Wynne snorted, and let a small ball of light fizz from her palm, ascending a good four feet upwards and illuminating the path ahead before it faded and disappeared with a soft _pop_. "Call it women's intuition. I'm sure Uldred has some redeeming qualities. He probably has a perfectly good reason for not displaying them."

I smiled, despite my sore lip. I'd not thought the mage had such a dry tongue on her.

"But how did it all start?" I asked. "Greagoir said it was a little while after the mages returned from Ostagar."

"Ah… yes, I was at that ill-fated battle, as you know," Wynne said, giving me a rather curious look.

I wondered if she wanted to ask how Alistair and I had survived, but I doubted this was really the time to be swapping war stories. Besides, would she have believed us?

"Afterwards, I was in no state to travel, so I stayed at the fortress to recuperate and help the wounded. Uldred, on the other hand, left for the tower almost immediately. When I finally returned, I found that Uldred had all but convinced the Circle to join Loghain…." The name left her lips wreathed in distaste, though the crack in that calm, moderate composure was only brief. Wynne shrugged. "Of course, I cannot fault the Circle. Uldred's argument _was _persuasive, and how could they have known what happened at Ostagar?"

_That the beacon was late,_ my mind supplemented, _and the plan torn to ruins…._

"Huh." Alistair frowned. "Seems convenient. You think Uldred could have been—"

"In cahoots with the teyrn?" Wynne finished. "That is my suspicion. Uldred always wanted power; perhaps Loghain promised him the post of first enchanter, once they had dealt with the Blight."

We were almost at the top of the stairs, the narrow passageway opening out into another corridor, with a series of doors leading off it. I didn't much care for Wynne's theory, nor for her fanning the flames of Alistair's burgeoning vendetta… though I had to admit that the hypothesis was reasonable. I didn't _like_ it, but what other explanation was there? Just like at Redcliffe, it seemed we were either facing dark intentions, or impossible coincidences.

"I don't know if that's the case," Wynne said with a shrug. "However, I told First Enchanter Irving what Loghain did on the battlefield. I revealed him for the traitorous bastard he is… and Irving said he would take care of it. He called a meeting to confront Uldred, but something must have gone wrong. I emerged from my quarters when I heard the screams. They were coming from the meeting room and it wasn't long before I saw the first abomination, running down a mage. It deteriorated quickly after that. Those of us who were left… well, we took the children, and fell back as far as we could."

I nodded slowly, concentrating on not imagining the details. "So, this all started at the meeting?"

"It must have." Wynne looked thoughtful for a moment. "As far as I could tell, anyway."

"Hm. Somehow," Alistair said dryly, "I imagine we'll be piecing the details together as we go."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh. Good. That'll be something to look forward to."

He snorted and we paced on, along the clammy, dark corridor. I thought a heard scuffling in a couple of the rooms, and I was about to draw a blade when a fat, brown rat scurried across the flagstones. I exhaled, starting to relax again… and then we saw the body.

It lay in a pool of congealed blood, half-stretched across the open doorway to one of the laboratories, as Wynne called them; large chambers that held rows of benches and tables.

He'd been a templar, once. There was enough visible of the plate armour to judge that, though one arm was severed and the corpse's midsection torn through. I was glad he still had his helmet on; I didn't want to see the look he'd had on his face when he died. Past the body, there wasn't much visible through the open door but broken furniture and smashed glass… and more blood. The smell of it met me, laced with musty decay and rancid flesh. It reminded me of the Wilds, and the stench of darkspawn, and I shivered.

"Maker," Leliana murmured, peering over my shoulder. "There are more bodies… mages and templars alike. I don't think I want to know what happened here."

It was too easy to guess. The swiftest glance around the chamber yielded contorted, torn limbs, corpses swollen and blackening where they lay. In the far corner of the room, there were more rats. I heard the scuffling and the squeaking, and tried to avoid looking at the mess they were making of a young woman's remains. Satisfied there was nothing here for us, I turned away, and caught sight of the look on Wynne's face as she stared at the bodies. Pain scored deep lines across her brow, her mouth drawn tight and thin, but it was the clarity of her expression that stung me. Such a pure, gnawing agony.

She blinked, aware I was looking at her, and the pain seemed to peel back, exposing only determination… like naked, white bone beneath flesh.

"Let's go," she said hoarsely. "We should hurry."

I nodded. "Agreed."

We headed on to the end of the corridor, and the eerie quiet persisted. I had to admit that I'd expected to see some action by now; not that I was overly eager to see whatever could cause the kind of damage we'd seen in the laboratory.

Just as on the lower level, the hallway opened out into a larger chamber, and as we approached the point where there had, until recently, been another set of doors across the archway, we heard voices. It wasn't much more than a low whisper—too faint to pick out words—but it was warning enough. Leliana drew her bow from her shoulder, already stringing an arrow with silent ease. She stole forwards on soft, soundless feet, and we followed, picking our way over the smashed remnants of the doors. I tried not to think about what might have broken them down.

There was a group of mages on the far side of the chamber. They were partially obscured by one of those great, arching pillars, and a wrought-iron screen that was set into the stonework, but we could hear their agitated muttering. It sounded like an argument, though I didn't catch much of it.

I stumbled, my foot knocking against a broken piece of wood and sending it scudding on the flagstones. The noise echoed all through the chamber and—in less time than it took for me to wince and swear—the mages turned on us.

If there'd been any doubt that they weren't survivors of the rebellion, like Wynne's rag-tag group, it evaporated in the first burst of lightning. We divided, lurching for cover… bright lights burned before my eyes, and I wondered how mages managed to get by without blinding themselves. The hiss of an arrow whistled past my left shoulder, and I heard one of the mages cry out as she went down. Leliana got off another shot, and it gave me cover enough to sprint across the chamber and take the fight to our opponents. There was logic there, of a kind. I reasoned, in my inexperience, that it would be easier to take them down close to… that the worst they could do was fire at range. I heard Alistair yelling as I ran, wanting to know what the hell I thought I was doing, but it was a bit late by then.

Magical fire crackled over my head—real flames, roaring red and orange, which scared me, because I'd never seen it before, never associated something so very physical with mages' abilities—and the smell of singed hair and leather enveloped me. I ducked further, shut my eyes, pitched into the gaggle of robed figures and struck out blindly. Chaos rocked around me, bodies jostling and tumbling, and my blade buried itself in soft, live flesh. Face to face with a young, blonde woman, I saw her eyes widen and her mouth grow loose as the warmth of her blood ran down my wrist. A wet, red shape bloomed in the middle of her robe, just below her breasts, and I struggled to pull my dagger free as she slumped to the floor. I was aware of the press and crash of the melee, and of Alistair charging in on the left, but everything seemed fractured and smeared together, and I didn't anticipate the kind of weapons the mages had at their disposal.

Blood magic had never been anything more than an abstract idea to me; something that was muttered darkly of in corners, or whispered of as part of the curse that mages bore. I didn't know what it could do.

One of the robed figures—a dark-haired young man, thin-faced and sallow—flung his palm out towards me, screaming a chant of ugly, angular words. The blood I'd spilled seemed to burn on my skin, and I could feel the power rising around me. It crackled, like the heat that comes before a summer storm, waiting to be broken… and it was as if the body of the girl at my feet was the source of it. I understood what Jowan had been talking about then, and it revolted me. The idea that a person—all their thoughts, their feelings, their dreams—could become mere fuel, condensed into something so faceless and violent, was horrific. It was no less so when the full force of the blow hit me and, mouth full of the taste of blood and static, I was knocked back a good four feet, landing on my behind yet again. The mage raised his other arm, and I had no doubt he intended some other, more deadly charm, but he was interrupted, felled by a well-aimed arrow to the eye.

I scrambled up, headed back into the fray, aware of how much we owed to Leliana and her bow. Wynne was a very different fighter to Morrigan: no bursts of frost riming the air, no violent flashes of light. She struck carefully, I saw, bolts of arcane energy applied with precision and surprising power. There were only two of the blood mages left standing. One of them unleashed a huge, swirling cone of flame that had Alistair pitching to the ground, ducking and rolling for cover, while the second raised his staff and aimed at Leliana. I kicked him in the groin, hard enough to drop him to his knees and—while the human was doubled up, mewling and retching in his fine satins—I drove my sword through his neck. It was quick, but bloody, and I didn't realise until it was done how dispassionate the action had been.

They'd meant to kill us, I reminded myself. They were abominations, weren't they? Only, as the last mage crawled on the stones, hand raised over her head, she didn't look like a demon. She looked like a frightened, injured bird, fluttering hopelessly against the inside of a windowpane when it has no idea how it got there.

"Don't kill me! Please!"

Alistair was standing over her, his sword already streaked with blood. I winced, expecting the killing blow. That was what they trained templars for, wasn't it? He held the blade half-ready, and he seemed to start the motion, but it faltered somewhere between intent and action. He exhaled, his breathing fast and ragged, and looked away, as if surveying the mess we'd made. Blood pooled on the flagstones; bodies and scorch marks and the smell of burnt hair. Leliana's soft footfalls echoed against the stones, and Wynne was not far behind her. Alistair raised his head and looked at me, his face all planes of shadow, pierced by tired, heavy eyes.

I swallowed heavily. Who was I to make this choice? Why me? The power over life and death was too unwieldy a thing to hold, and I had no wish to be its master. The blood mage followed his gaze and stared up at me, offering a wide-eyed plea.

"I beg you… please," she whispered, clutching at her left arm.

Blood seeped through the fabric of her robe. I wished fervently that we'd killed her quicker. Forged in violence I might have been, in so many ways, but there was a vital difference for me between cutting down darkspawn or walking dead, and killing someone who could look me in the eye and say they wished to live.

The last time I'd spilled living, untainted human blood, back on that evil day in Denerim, even the men Soris and I had killed had been intent on killing _us_. Somehow, that made it taste different. If the act was quick, essential—a matter of kill or be killed—it didn't feel like murder. A comforting little lie to tell myself, I supposed, and my hypocrisy stared up at me from those cold, bloody stones.

"Please," she repeated, "I know I have no right to ask for mercy, but I didn't mean for this death and destruction. None of us did!"

"You cannot expect mercy for what you have done," Wynne said icily. "You and these others… you sought to help Uldred overthrow the Circle, did you not? And now this—_blood_ magic?"

"Wynne…." Recognition flickered in the woman's brown eyes. "You can understand, can't you? He promised us freedom! Uldred told us that the Circle would support Loghain, and Loghain would help us be free of the Chantry."

"Huh." Alistair curled his lip. "Should have known. That treacherous—"

"But why turn to forbidden magic?" I demanded, cutting across his acerbic muttering.

The mage looked up at me, her mouth trembling.

"You don't know what it was like. The templars were watching… always _watching_…. The magic was a means to an end. It gave us—it gave _me_ the power to fight for what I believed in."

There was a breathy, desperate quality to her voice, eerie in the echoing, stone-walled dimness. It was all the more unsettling for the naked idealism that shone through it… and the fact that I could all too easily understand what terrible acts were borne of desperation.

Wynne folded her arms across her chest and tilted her chin, looking for a moment like a stern schoolmarm.

"I have known you since you were an apprentice, Kalia. If I had thought for one moment…." She shook her head, her mouth snapping shut as if she was afraid of what she might say. "Fighting for what you believe is commendable," she said, her voice cold, "but the ends do not always justify the means."

The mage shifted uncomfortably on the floor, adjusting the hand she pressed to her arm. Blood smeared her palm, though the wound didn't appear to be all that bad. Just a flesh nick. I wondered how much power she could draw from that, if she chose. How blindly devoted to her cause would she have to be to turn on us now? And how difficult would it be to put a knife to her neck and finish her?

She gave a small, incredulous cough of laughter.

"You don't really believe that, do you, Wynne? Change rarely comes peacefully. Andraste waged war on the Imperium; she didn't write them a strongly worded letter!"

I glanced at Wynne's tight-lipped displeasure, aware from the way her jaw shifted that—just perhaps—there was a small part of her that agreed with the younger woman.

Still, she shook her head again, and I could see the pain in her eyes.

"Nothing is worth what you've done to this place. _Nothing_."

The blood mage hung her head, and I barely heard the words that escaped her bitterly bowed lips.

"No. You're right. And it was all for nothing, wasn't it? Now Uldred's gone mad, and we are scattered, doomed to die at the hands of those who seek to right our wrongs…."

I thought, for one awful minute, she might cry, and I looked at Alistair, hoping he—the nearest thing we had to a templar—might have some sort of contribution to offer. Maybe some sort of conviction. Instead, he met my gaze, his jaw clenched awkwardly.

"We… we can't allow blood mages to live, though," he said, and it sounded like catechism, like the echoes from far-off days of training.

"Please," the mage said again, her voice thick with unshed tears and her dignity quietly compelling. "I don't want to die."

She was addressing me, I realised. Not him. Not Wynne… not any of them. Me.

"Just… just give me a chance to atone for what I've done. Please, if you spare me, I… I could escape and seek penance at the Chantry."

I frowned. After all those years of templars breathing down her neck? It seemed an odd choice, although I supposed a mage turned maleficar and apostate didn't have many alternatives. From what I understood, the Chantry was supposed to give sanctuary to all who asked for it, but—

"They'll never take you," Alistair said. "They're very picky about who they let in, you know. Harlots, murderers, yes. Maleficarum? Oh, no."

His tone was arch, and I could spot sarcasm being used to cloak the fact that this woman had got to him. To me, too, I supposed. My sword hung limply at my side. There was no way I was prepared to kill her… and maybe she scented my weakness.

It _was _weakness, I was sure, because despite the empathy I felt, I didn't trust her. This could all be a ruse. I thought of the survivors we'd left behind, no longer protected by Wynne's magical barrier. All those children, who knew no other home than this, no other family….

"Your comments betray your ignorance, Alistair," Leliana said, rather sharply. "The Chantry accepts _all_, regardless of what they've done."

"Really?" He snorted. "Well, it seems you're familiar with a whole other Chantry, because the one _I _know wouldn't hesitate to shove a sword of mercy right through her heart."

Bitterness dripped from his words, and I winced at the vividness of the image. Leliana looked as if it actually, physically hurt her. She curled her mouth around a terse little gasp, and I couldn't tell whether she was angry or just knocked hollow. A horrible silence pooled out around us, and the blood mage looked up at me, her dark eyes imploring.

"I just want my life," she said quietly. "Please?"

I crumbled, and I was sure everyone knew it, no matter how gruff I tried to sound. The fat lip and the fatigue helped a bit, but probably not enough.

"How will you get out, then?" I raised an eyebrow. "With blood magic?"

"No, I…." She shook her head. "I'll find a way. Please. Let me go, and I swear I'll do something good with my life."

I could feel the weight of four gazes on me. Wynne's disapproval was like winter ice, cold enough to burn. I didn't look at her. I didn't look at any of them, not even the blood mage, and just stared at the filthy flagstones.

"Fine." My voice held an authority that didn't feel real. I wished I could believe in it. I shrugged. "Go. If you can escape the templars, you probably deserve your freedom."

She gasped, and I supposed she'd thought I really would kill her. Her eyes shimmered.

"Thank you! Oh… thank you. The Maker will surely turn His eyes on you for your mercy!"

I didn't want to hear it. At the rate things were going, if the Maker turned his gaze on me, all He was likely to see was a horrible, bloody failure. I shook my head, in part to brush away the woman's gratitude and, in part, to try to force myself away from those thoughts. We weren't dead yet.

Leliana was the one to step forward and help the blood mage to her feet. The rest of us didn't move. I didn't know whether Alistair or Wynne disapproved of my choice; if either of them did, they didn't say so. I thought I heard Leliana exchange a few murmured words with the woman—a brief message of encouragement or support, perhaps—and then she was limping off down the hallway, back the way we'd come, bloodied but unbowed.

"Well," Leliana said crisply, returning to us, "I suggest we find out what is going on at the top of this tower."

I nodded. "The sooner the better."

It wouldn't be long before I had cause to rethink those words.

_**~o~O~o~**_

There were more rooms, more hallways… more bodies and scenes of bloody struggle. From what we were able to piece together by the state of things—and the unwelcome discovery of blood magic's involvement in Uldred's planned rebellion—the chaos that had enveloped the tower had been dramatic, but relatively brief.

We came across the corpses of mages and templars alike, some already beginning to swell and rot, some charred beyond all recognition. The encounter with the group of straggling blood mages had put us on the alert, and every shadow seemed to hold new threats though, fortunately, there was little to challenge us. I expected the corpses we found to rise up, and to find myself battling more undead, but they stayed refreshingly inanimate. I mumbled something to that effect, and ended up having to explain what had happened at Redcliffe to Wynne.

"How awful," she said, looking grim. "The poor child."

It struck me as testament to her character that she could say that, given everything she must have witnessed over the past few days. Still, those clear eyes clouded with sympathy, and that thin-lipped mouth bowed into a curve of deep thought. A small, crooked furrow bent between her narrow grey brows.

"You think something could be done for him, though?" I asked. "I mean, it _is_ possible to free a mage from possession, where the demon has been allowed to enter willingly?"

"I believe it is," she said slowly, each word tempered with the weight of consideration… and the shadow of uncertainty. "I have never seen it done, myself, nor known of such a case, but I see no reason it should not work."

We were making our way up yet another winding staircase, all slanted treads and oppressive, clammy stonework. Behind me, Alistair grunted.

"Mm. That's if there are any mages _left_."

I winced. For all the differences between us, I was finding I liked Alistair a lot more than I'd ever expected to like a human… but he wasn't given to high tact or sensitivity, especially after the week we'd had.

"Hm." Wynne shot a sharp look over her shoulder. "We are not all as helpless as you imagine, sonny. There _will _be those who have resisted Uldred. And as for the rest of them… well, at the very least, I believe I'm still able to bend them across my knee and give them a sound spanking."

She hiked off up the rest of the steps, spine ramrod straight and shoulders back, and Alistair gave me a glassy-eyed look as he caught up.

"Well, now," he said. "There's an image."

I nodded, trying hard not to think about it. "Mm. Remind me not to annoy her, won't you?"

The staircase led us onto the floor that housed the tower's chapel, the great hall, and several other common rooms. As we picked our way through the debris, I questioned Wynne on the matters of blood magic and abominations, and she summarised with all the elegant brevity of a natural teacher. It didn't make it any easier to hear—those horrific descriptions of domination, minds bent to demonic wills and bodies corrupted by unspeakable foulness—but at least it helped me understand what we were facing. Part of me suspected it would have been better not to know.

"I still don't understand, though," I said, as we crossed through the ravaged space of the great hall, where the floor was scorched with the marks of a horrible battle.

Blackened corpses, both mage and templar, spoke of a desperate effort to bring something to ground here, and we held back a little, unsure whether the dead had succeeded. I peered dubiously at the stinking, charred remains of a templar. His face had been burned away, nothing but the crusted mass of boiled red flesh and crisp scraps of skin behind it. There were gaping foul wells where his eyes and mouth should have been, the seared stumps of teeth poking out like crooked gravestones.

"I… I thought," I said, swallowing heavily, "that places where the Veil is thin, where there's so much death… that things were drawn to it. Yet we're not seeing walking corpses."

Wynne shook her head. "No. That is something of a worry, frankly."

"Oh?"

"Things of that… nature," she said carefully, evidently trying to choose her words for someone of a non-magical bent, "are drawn to the physical world as moths are to a flame. They come blindly, hungrily… but they are weak. Whatever Uldred has done—whatever he has raised—it is something altogether more powerful."

"Powerful enough to scare lesser demons away?" Alistair asked, though it was clear from his face that he already knew the answer.

Wynne shrugged. "You could put it that way, yes."

He grimaced. "Oh, good."

Leliana was pacing the edge of the room, along a wall of statues that all seemed to depict famous enchanters of the ages. Their blank marble faces stared straight ahead, and I couldn't help wondering what horrors they'd witnessed.

She stopped at the corner of the chamber, one hand going to her mouth and the other to the dagger at her hip.

"Oh! Oh, Maker… I think I've found what they were fighting…."

She sounded distinctly queasy, and turned from the sight. I was already heading over, and at first I thought it was just the smell that had got to her—the whole place did stink of burnt flesh and hair, though I didn't think it was quite as bad as the night of walking corpses at Redcliffe—but that wasn't it at all.

It didn't look like much more than a bundle of rags. It stunk, but… as I got closer, I could see there was flesh there. Of a kind, anyway. A body, but warped and disfigured. It was slumped in the corner, partially beneath a broken table. Scorch patterns on the flagstones indicated fierce fighting, and there was a trail of blood seared into the floor. The… thing… wore the remnants of robes, but that was the last indication that it had ever been a mage.

Every inch of visible skin seemed to be swollen, bubbles and pustules of purpled flesh bursting across its surface. The marks of battle were one thing, but whatever else had happened to this poor creature… well, I didn't know what to think. It was less deformed than completely obliterated, any recognisable shape—human or elven—obscured by grotesque protuberances. Even the hands, clenched in death fists at its chest, were gnarled and blemished beyond any conceivable type of wound. It was as if the body had been remade, cobbled back together from spare parts by something that knew the theory of how people were supposed to work, but had no idea of the practicalities.

I wasn't far wrong.

"There you are," Alistair said, sounding strained and putting the back of his hand over his mouth. "You wanted to know how to spot an abomination."

Bile rose in my throat, and I struggled to think of anything clever to say. Anything at all, in fact, except redecorating the flagstones. Leliana had already turned her back on the corpse, and was waiting by the great wooden doors that stood at the far end of the hall. She glanced at us, and nodded towards the corridor that lay beyond.

"This way, I think."

_**~o~O~o~**_

I was wondering how many damn floors the Tower could have when Wynne directed us up to a hallway from which several well-appointed chambers ran off; senior mages' rooms, she explained. The Harrowing Chamber was not far.

"Ugh." Alistair shuddered. "Is it me, or is it getting colder as we go up?"

He was right. That clammy chill was growing worse. It clung to everything, and the stones themselves seemed to whisper warnings. We could hear low sounds drift through the chambers, muffled by those thick walls, their echoes bent out of shape by the high ceilings and long corridors. No more eerie stillness, I realised. The Tower had been in chaos for nearly a week, and the lines of territory had been drawn. Whatever was up here, we were entering into its domain.

The first one came from a room at the end of the hallway. It loomed out at us like a shadow, and it seemed sickeningly impossible that anything that horrific should be able to move so silently… as if it floated above the ground. Scraps of silk and brocade clung to a malformed frame, flesh boiling out obscenely as the shell of a human being struggled to contain the demon within it. Fire bloomed along the stonework, a great shooting rush of it that left us all a little singed. Wynne cried out, a series of words in some unknown tongue, and a curve of bluish light seemed to envelop us. Energy pulsed all around me, the hair crackling on the back of my neck. It made my teeth ache. The abomination flung spells at us, and I saw how every effort ripped its host apart a little more. I understood, then, what separated this foulness from maleficarum; this was not the knowing application of evil, but the unhinged madness of a creature that had lost all form, all awareness.

Whatever the thing that faced us had been, it was that no longer. All it could do was lash out, seeking to wound and destroy as only things which are maddened through pain and confusion can do.

It would have been easier to feel sorry for it, had those crazed lashing outs not been so bloody dangerous.

We fought hard, the four of us struggling to bring it to an unpleasant, messy end against the far wall of the corridor. My mouth was full of the smell of blood and burned flesh, and my leathers were distinctly smoky. Alistair, panting hard and favouring his wounded shoulder even worse than before—it would be a miracle if those stitches hadn't split, I thought—nodded towards the mage's quarters that lay around the curve of the hallway.

"There's more… they're coming."

He was right. The sounds of movement and the fleshy glide of inhuman bodies were growing louder. I looked over my shoulder at Wynne and Leliana, and then to the large, heavy doors that faced the opposite side of the corridor. Like the lower floors, the upper part of the tower seemed built around the same pattern of side chambers and wider central rooms… but this one offered the potential of a barricade.

"In there," I called. "Maybe we can hold them off!"

Wynne nodded, and loosed a fireball that caught at the abomination's corpse. It wouldn't be much, but it might be enough to slow the encroaching horrors.

Alistair and I wrested the doors open, and we ran, piling into the central chamber without the thought that it could hold something worse than what we were fleeing.

It did, of course.

The chamber was a mess. Bodies, debris… filth everywhere. The stench was appalling and, even in the dimness, I could see that the dead had been allowed no dignity. Pulled apart, mauled to pieces and pegged open to rot. The air was rank with decomposition and sulphur… and the feeling that it was about to get so much worse drilled through every inch of my flesh.

I felt the voice, rather than hearing it. A low, laconic drawl that wrapped itself around us, as final and irrefutable as the way those great wooden doors had slammed shut, sealing us in here with… whatever the creature was.

"Oh, look. Visitors. I'd entertain you, but… hmm… too much effort involved."

It drew out of the shadows, and my stomach knotted. An abomination, and yet something more than that, something… worse. Its appearance was just as grotesque—all foul, boiling flesh congealed into a twisted, ugly form—but it didn't move with the same desperation, and it was clearly capable of rational thought, even communication.

"A demon," Wynne whispered, "and powerful. Do nothing it says."

The creature was still edging lazily towards us, its malformed head swaying slightly, side to side, as it gazed at us with milky, bulbous eyes. The lipless, skinless maw of a mouth worked over the shapes of words, yet didn't match the rate at which I heard them in my head. Sick dizziness pulled at me, and my knees ached to bend, to drop me to the floor, sticky with blood and filth as it was.

Leliana pointed towards the far side of the chamber. "Th-that man… he is not dead… he's _alive_…. What have you done to him?"

I stared muzzily at where she gestured. A mage—a dark-haired young man in Circle robes—lay crumpled on the flagstones, face up, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths and his arms stretched out from his body, fingers curled and twitching slightly. His face was slack, his eyes unblinking as he stared, apparently unconsciously, towards the high, vaulted ceiling.

"Niall!" Wynne started forwards.

The demon raised one hand, a patchwork of twisted sinews and raw, glossy muscle, and she stopped as if caught on some invisible web.

"Come, now. He's just resting. Poor lad, he was so very, very weary."

There was something in the way it said those words, the texture of them as they scraped against my brain. The room seemed to draw closer, the shadows softening and welcoming me. My body was leaden, unresponsive… and I knew I had to fight it. I just didn't remember why.

"You want to join us, don't you?" the demon purred. "Wouldn't you like to just lay down and… forget about all this? Leave it all behind?"

I did. Oh, Maker, I did. Wanted to more than anything. Yet my lips parted and words, both mine and not mine, stumbled unwillingly from a fuzzy tongue.

"I-I don't think… s'not a good idea…."

To my left, Leliana shook her head sleepily. "No, you won't… you won't fool us that easily, you know."

Alistair shook his head. "Can't… keep eyes open. Someone… pinch… me…."

"Resist," Wynne urged. "You must… resist, else we are all lost…."

There was a thump, and the soft jangle of buckles, as Alistair folded gracelessly to the floor.

That _voice_… that terrible, slow, drawling voice echoed through me once more, and it seemed to reverberate all the way down to my bones.

"Why do you fight? You deserve more…. You deserve a _rest_. The world will go on without you."

My eyes began to close, and I supposed it was true.

After all, what did I matter?


	14. Chapter 14

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN

* * *

**

I woke in my own bed, the same as every morning. A yawn, a stretch, the familiar feel of scratchy woollen blankets against my legs as I pushed the covers back and swung my feet to the floor. Wooden boards worn smooth, and patchy whitewash on the far wall… these things greeted me like old friends. Dreams still wreathed my mind, and I reached up to scratch my head, cracking another yawn. My fingers trailed down the back of my neck, then moved to the line of my collarbone and the hollow at the base of my throat. I rubbed at the sleep-warm skin, frowning slightly, unable to recall what it was I should find there.

Still, there was no time to waste dithering about with the tail ends of dreams. I had chores to do. They were the things I did every morning, the rhythms of life that were as much a part of the day as breathing. Clothes on, set the fire, fetch the water, boil the kettle, set a bowl for Father to wash in, scrub the floor, the step and the table, then make myself presentable for the day.

I couldn't quite remember what I was meant to be doing… was I on the gates today? A glance around the room confirmed there were no stacks of gloves to sell, or other odds and ends. Perhaps Shianni would be collecting flowers from the grower down by the east end. We did well with flowers, usually. Shems would buy bruised tulips from wide-eyed elven girls… the women, especially. It gave them the warm, fuzzy glow of charity, I always suspected.

We overcharged them something rotten.

I pulled on my dress, pushed my fingers through my hair, tunelessly hummed the first few bars of _The Woman Who Lived in the Sea_, and folded up the blankets. Shafts of thin sunlight were poking their way through the window, and it wasn't long before I was on my knees in front of the hearth, grubbing out cold ashes and building up a fresh fire. Behind me, the door opened, and familiar footsteps scuffed on the boards. I didn't really understand why my heart raced and my stomach clenched.

I stood, brushing my sooty hands against my hips, and turned to see Father greeting me with a smile.

"Ah, my little girl."

He held out his arms, and I folded happily into them, breathing in the familiar scent of the soap he used, and the dusty sharpness of his old leather jerkin. He stroked my hair and chuckled as he pulled back to look at me.

"There, now. Anyone would think you hadn't seen me in a month! You look so like your dear mother, you know. So beautiful."

He dabbed one thick, calloused finger to the end of my nose and smiled again. Laughter played all over his face like sunshine, and… and somehow that wasn't right. Father didn't usually call me beautiful. Nobody did, on account of it really not being true. I wasn't hideous, but I wasn't pretty the way elven girls were meant to be. No glittering eyes or delicately tapered limbs. No swan-like neck or ample bosom upon a slender frame. The only day I'd been called beautiful was… some other time, I felt sure. I just couldn't remember when.

_It's the last day I'll be able to call you that, isn't it?_

Father ruffled my hair, the way he hadn't done since I was a child.

"Go on, now," he said, smiling. "Your cousin's waiting for you."

"Y-Yes, Father."

Had I finished setting the fire? I couldn't remember. I wasn't… sure about anything. But it didn't matter. Not when there were things to do. I nodded meekly and headed out of the door. Sunlight pooled in the cobbled streets, and the smells of the marketplace were almost drowning out the middens. Everything seemed so… bright. I was home, and it was wonderful, but I wasn't sure why. People kept smiling at me, which seemed odd, because I was just doing what I did every day of my life.

I looked down at the pail in my hand, which I didn't remember picking up.

A stray dog with a brindled coat and large, golden eyes trotted up to me and whined. I reached out and patted the creature's broad, flat skull. It fitted very neatly beneath my palm, and my fingers curled around the warmth of the dog's head. It looked up at me, fixing me with a look of such intelligence that I was sure there was something more than ordinary canine interest behind that odd, ochre-gold gaze.

But… I didn't have time for idle fancy. I walked up to the pump, and Shianni was there, all sharp humour and gossip, like she was every day. The sun made flames of her red hair. She wore it braided today, and the intricate little tendrils danced as she worked the pump handle. I watched her hard, clever hands, and I held the pail still. I looked at her narrow face, her wide blue eyes, and the freckles dusted across her clear, pale skin… and something didn't feel right.

Shianni must have felt my gaze on her, because she looked up at me and smiled that wide, knowing smile of hers.

"What's the matter, cousin?" she asked. "Are you off daydreaming again somewhere?"

"Hm?" I blinked guiltily. "No, I… I was just thinking."

Shianni raised her eyebrows. "Oh? About what, hm?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. Well… no. It doesn't matter."

The water gurgled from the pump, splashing and spinning just the way Shianni's laughter did. She wiped the back of one lean hand across her brow.

"I know what you're thinking about… your dreamy betrothed!"

"What? No, I—"

"You _are_! Admit it! Uncle said you got another letter from Highever. Is it true he's making you a ring?"

The heat of a blush—the memory of embarrassment, it seemed—prickled at my cheeks, and my lips twisted into an uncertain, discomforted smile. More memories: the touch of thick paper, its smell and its rustle… all that excitement as Father read the letter to me. He'd glowed with pride, clucked over every detail like a broody hen, and we'd sat at the freshly scrubbed table, him planning the wedding to end all weddings.

I wasn't sure I wanted that. Knowing I wouldn't have to leave Denerim was enough… I didn't need flowers and silk. Still, Shianni was grinning at me, and I shrugged awkwardly.

"Mm. Apparently."

"Ohhh, you're so lucky." Shianni sighed, but I recognised the glint in her eye as she went back to working the pump handle. "What girl wouldn't want a blacksmith's son? And they say he's handsome. I can see him now, standing in front of the forge, beating away with his big… _hammer_…!"

She let out a peal of laughter, delighted at having made me blush, and I thought about what little I knew of Nelaros. Bare facts, really, nothing more. Just what the matchmaker had told Father, and what few missives we'd had from the family. It was all very well for Shianni to rhapsodise about my prospective husband, but I had no idea whether any of it was true. It was all just perceptions, so far… second-hand murmurs and the wisps of dreams.

_Dreams_.

Something itched at the back of my mind, some thought or impulse that I couldn't put words to, but it was hard to concentrate on anything with Shianni making dirty jokes about puffing the bellows.

"Will you stop it?" Heat flamed in my cheeks. "People are staring."

"Oh, so what?" she retorted. "Anyway, at least you have Uncle to see to your match for you. Did you hear about the girl the hahren's found for Soris?"

I blinked, looking into my cousin's impish, mischievous face. She grinned again, and the freckles shifted like tainted snowflakes on her cheeks. I could remember—but was it really a memory?—a girl so unlike Shianni… a pale, pointed little mouse of a thing, with a heavily cut fringe and dainty, delicate ears. The impression of kindness whispered to me across that strange chasm of unknowing, and I fought for clarity.

"V-Valora?"

The name was foreign to me; I didn't know where it came from, but I knew I _should_ know. There were other faces, too… other memories. Tears, and screams, and—

_By dawn, the city will run red with elven blood. Think about it. You know how this ends._

—everything began to crack around me. The little things, the things that weren't quite right, all seemed to be bigger somehow, more glaringly obvious. The beautiful day, the sunshine—too bright, too early—the laughter and the love… the little mistakes. And there _were _mistakes. For a start, nothing ever truly drowned out the smell of the middens.

_No._

I… I remembered, sort of. A tower, and a boat, and an echoing stone hall. A voice that told me to resist, and one that coaxed me to forget. But I couldn't, could I? Because all I had to hold onto were memories, both the good and the bad.

And I remembered all of this. It was mine. These were _my_ memories, and I… no, I was not going to stand for some bastard demon sorting through them like lost ends of ribbon and tying them up together all wrong. Because that's what this was, wasn't it?

A dream. A pretence. A picture, painted in my head with all the wrong colours, the wrong nuances. A time before the bad things happened, but a time that had never really existed.

_Shianni_.

I opened my mouth, but my throat was dry. She smiled at me; that crooked smile that made her nose wrinkle slightly, and I wanted to see it again. I wanted to see her laugh, and see her happy, and safe, and content. I wanted to talk about nothing, to pick over the gossip of matchmakers and flirtations, and the piffling little dramas of who wasn't talking to whom, which family had declared themselves slighted by the action of another… and which of the boys had been seen reeling in drunk at four in the morning.

_I want to go home…._

But I was home, wasn't I?

Yes. It would be so easy to stay. So easy to let the dreams wrap me up, keep me safe in their warmth and their perfect, splendid solitude.

And yet… I could hear another voice, a familiar voice that wept and screamed and cried, begging me over and over to take her home, to take away all the pain and the mortification.

I remembered then. _Really _remembered. I remembered it all.

Shianni, and Nola, and Nelaros… Duncan, and the black blood of the Joining, and Daveth choking as the taint ate him up, and Jory dying of fear, and every single one of those screaming, bloody minutes on the ascent of Ishal, and how everyone we'd seen, everyone we'd been there to help, was lying dead in the mud in that forsaken place. I remembered Lothering, defenceless and gutted open even before the horde got there—darkspawn, who surged in my memory all over again, swarming black and fetid and filthy through my mind, with bladed teeth and belching flesh-stink, those things that would destroy the whole world if we let them….

It was a continual howl, that chain of memories that unfolded through me like a knife drawn with deliberate slowness across unguarded skin. Everything, from the day I murdered Vaughan to the siege of Redcliffe and the endless, bloody repetition of corpses and monsters. The Circle Tower, and the abominations, and the white, terrified faces of the children whom the templars had locked in to die. Every impossibility, every mistake, every agony. I fell to my knees, the pail that wasn't really there spilling cold, clear water all around me. I wrapped my arms around my head and wailed, and the world whirled into dark, blinding shapes.

_**~o~O~o~**_

I stood up, or dreamed that I stood up, or… whatever it was, I was in the Fade. More than that, I was aware of the fact. Everything was wisps around me, in an existence where there was no up or down, no sky or ground—at least, not in the conventional sense. I looked at my hands, wriggled my fingers experimentally, and watched them cycle through the movement as if every second had been drawn on paper and then pinned together. Everything was ragged, shrouded in a yellow-tinged fog that wrapped up all it touched.

But I was not alone. A dark-haired man stood—both several feet away and at once right next to me—and he wore the robes of a mage… or he seemed to.

"W-What… how…?" I tried, my voice echoing in my head the way voices do in dreams, where speech is not speech and time is not quite time.

"Who are you?" The man looked at me in surprise. "Are you a demon? No… no, I see that you're not. You're like me, aren't you? Well, congratulations on getting out of that trap."

"Trap?" I repeated, confused.

He smiled sadly, his face flickering before me like the wavering reflection on a pool of water.

"The demon traps everything that comes here in a dream. It thinks they can't—or won't—try to leave. I thought I'd escaped, too, but I've been wandering these empty, grey spaces for a lifetime."

Shards of memory poked at me, and I furrowed my brow.

"You're… you're Niall, aren't you?"

He nodded. "Yes, I am. I was trying to save the Circle when I encountered the sloth demon. I expect our experiences were similar."

I winced. "Maybe. What… I mean, how do I—?"

"Get out?" He shook his head. "There's no point. It's useless. It's too late now, anyway. Everyone's dead."

"No." I blinked, trying to hold together the loose chains of thought that slipped, serpent-like, around my head. "No, they're not. There are survivors. The Circle _can_ be saved."

Niall looked curiously at me. "You sound very sure of yourself."

"It's true! Now, if we can just find a way out of here…." I started to look about me, as if waking up would so simple as walking through a door.

Niall chuckled bitterly. "Huh. You'd think so, wouldn't you? There's no way out, though. I know. The sloth demon has guarded himself carefully. He keeps the dreamers apart… wraps them up in their own little worlds, so they can't find each other."

"What?" I frowned. "You mean my companions could be here, too?"

"You came with others? Well, yes… it's possible."

"Then I have to find them. I have to—"

Niall gave another grim chuckle. "You might as well forget about it. Even if you _can _get out of the trap, there are obstacles. Always something in your way, taunting you… crazy dream things. Rivers of flame, impassable doors. You might see the path but never be able to get there. It can drive you mad," he added, with a touch of hollow wistfulness.

There was a terrible calmness to the way he spoke, as if he was resigned to being here forever. I squinted up at the yellowish… well, not sky, but whatever approximation of it the Fade had. Curling archways of not-quite-rock wound around us, like the roots of some living thing, some leafless, dead, stone tree. I thought of the vhenadahl back home, and how Valendrian always spoke about the strength of standing together, and the bonds of community.

A desolate hopelessness pulled at me as I recalled how far from my old life I was—how I could never go back, never truly be part of that world again—and it washed over me like a huge wave. I shook my head. No… no, that wouldn't do. I couldn't afford to wallow in self-pity.

_We are strongest when we stand together._

I knew what I had to do.

I frowned, and looked at Niall. "You spoke of a… sloth… demon?"

"Hm? Oh, are you still here?" He gave me a tired but genial smile. "Yes. Demons have their own hierarchies, their own… games. Mortals serve as pawns for them, perhaps even bargaining chips. The demon keeping us here probably rules this entire section of the Fade. It'll not let us go easily, if at all."

"Well, I'm not going to sit here and wait to die," I snapped. "I'll find a way."

Niall seemed faintly amused. He tutted. "Well, well. Nothing dampens your spirit, does it? I don't know whether to admire or pity you."

"You _could _tell me how Uldred started all this," I said, peering again at the eerie, shrouded fog around us.

Demons, spirits, and dreamers… I didn't much like the idea of encountering any of them.

"What's that?" Niall sounded distracted; I could tell I was losing him to the crushing apathy this place created. "Hm? Oh… yes. Uldred. You know about that?"

"Not much," I admitted. "Just that he tried to convince the Circle to side with Loghain, and something went badly wrong."

Niall nodded dreamily. "Oh, you could say that. Yes, you could…. I was there, you know. In the meeting. He panicked when Irving confronted him, tried to leave… Irving wouldn't let him."

"Did Uldred confess?"

The mage shrugged, and he sounded distant and unconcerned. "I was barely paying attention. Such meetings are boring: the course of action is usually decided before we even congregate."

"Yes, but—" I stifled an irritable sigh. "But how did the trouble _start_?"

"Uldred let loose a bolt of energy that flung us all against the far wall." Niall smiled darkly. "That certainly woke me up. It might have been a signal. That was when a whole group of mages poured into the chamber… and I saw real blood magic in action for the first time in my life. It was like they brought the wrath of the Maker Himself down upon our heads."

For a moment, a look of awe, of something that was almost hunger crossed his face, and I had to fight not to be repulsed.

"But the abominations," I prompted, "where did they come from? We saw… in the tower, there were—"

"What? Oh, yes. I was getting to that." Niall blinked, and the trace of wistful yearning was gone. His mouth tightened. "Uldred must have also dabbled in demonology. When the fighting started he tried to summon something… or some _things_. They overwhelmed him, and when the screaming stopped, Uldred was… gone."

I had a horrible feeling I wasn't going to like the answer, but I asked the question anyway:

"Um. What do you mean, 'gone'? Dead?"

Niall shook his head. "I'm sure he _wishes _he were dead. Uldred became an abomination. And when I saw it, I ran for my life." He glanced up at me, his face etched with a terrible guilt and regret. "I imagine you think I'm a coward."

"After what I saw in the tower?" I raised an eyebrow. "I would have done the same thing."

He smiled thinly; I didn't know whether he believed me.

"I was in a panic. Once I calmed down, I thought about what would happen if that… thing… got out. I gathered some of my fellows and we obtained the Litany of Adralla from the stockroom. I thought if we disabled the others, we could throw everything we had at Uldred. But I saw my friends fall, one by one… and now it's my turn."

He started to grow weary and dull-faced again, and I reached out to shake his arm, force him to look at me.

"The Litany of Ad-Adralla? What's that?"

Niall blinked, struggling to stay focused. "Hm? It, er, it protects… protects against the blood mages' dominion. They can control you, you know. Make you do whatever they wish…. I have no idea who, or _what_ Adralla was, but the Litany is a powerful weapon."

He tilted his head, regarding me with a fuzzy, slightly unsure expression.

"Do you… d'you really think you can get out?"

In that moment, I didn't know. A knot of doubt sat in my throat like week-old bread and I almost couldn't speak past it… but then I thought of Duncan, who had saved my life because he believed there was some spark of potential in me that was worth sparing. Duncan, who had believed I could become a Grey Warden, and who had expected me to be worthy of the title.

"I intend to try," I said, as firmly as I could manage.

Niall nodded slowly. "I… I even think you might," he said, seemingly half to himself, and then he bit his lip. "If… if you do, take the Litany from my body. Use it against them. It will give you a chance… do you understand?"

I stared. "What? But—"

"Listen… I won't leave this place. Not now. I've been here far too long. The demon… it feeds off the dreamers it traps here." He let out a low, weary breath, and shook his head. "I am dying. It's as simple as that."

He sounded so utterly defeated, so crushed.

"No," I began. "No… you come with me, Niall. We'll find a way out, we'll get you healing. There are other survivors, other mages who—"

"Thank you, but it is too late." He shook his head, and smiled gently at me. "I do not fear what may come. My only regret is that I could not save the Circle. But you… I think you can. Do not trust what your eyes tell you. Find your strength… and take the Litany off my body when you return. It is important. Promise me."

"But—"

"Promise," he repeated, with more conviction than I'd heard from him in our entire exchange.

I nodded glumly. "All right. I promise."

Niall seemed to relax. "Good. Then it is time for us both to be on our way. You should go, before this place gets its claws into you. The Circle is all that matters now. Thank you and goodbye… friend."

I mumbled some useless platitude, touched by his bravery to the point where my eyes burned and my throat grew heavy, but I turned nonetheless and began to walk away, into that strange and blinding fog. That distorted, shrouded world echoed and sang darkly around me and—when I looked back to where I'd been—Niall was already no more than the wisp of a shape… a memory, or the ghost of a dream.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Even after all this time, I still hesitate to write of the journey through the Fade.

Niall was right; it was enough to drive a person mad. There were rivers of fire, and unbreakable doors, and portals through with no mortal body could pass. There were spirits and demons and dreamers; the souls of sleepers who could not see me, yet whose worlds clawed at me, trying to drag me into their visions and keep me there, consuming me totally. I saw the faces of the dead, and knew the demon was trying to trick me once again.

My mother called to me from the fog. Duncan, too; even Nelaros, handsome and brave and telling me he did not regret giving his life. He stretched out strong, white hands for me, calling me away to a perfect rest, just as Duncan commanded me to cease my foolishness and recognise my inexperience.

I pressed on, and on, and tried not to trust a thing I heard or saw. Soon, my measured paces turned to desperate running, and I flung myself through blind mile after mile of timeless, spaceless insanity, frustrated and furious… and with tears wet on my cheeks.

My head was still spinning with it all when I found the first dreamer I sought.

I stood in front of a pretty cottage, with white-painted walls and little blue windowboxes on the sills, filled with flowers. There was a blue-painted door, four neat, symmetrical windows, and a shingled roof. It wasn't real. Even if I hadn't known I was still in the Fade, it would have looked too perfect, too much like the kind of house a child would draw. I squinted upwards, almost expecting the sky to be a broad daub of bright blue, with the sun a yellow dot at its centre. I wasn't sure whether that would be worse than the unsettling, shroud-like fog, but it didn't matter. There was no daub of blue, just an unpleasant leaching of colour where this dream joined the wider Fade, and it put me in mind of ink seeping into water.

I pushed open the door. It swung back easily, and I heard the laughter of children, the thumps of running feet on wooden boards. Two red-cheeked boys with tousled mops of golden curls pelted past me, and the smell of fresh-baked bread dangled temptingly on the air. My throat tightened. The sheer strength of this dream scared me.

"Merien!"

Alistair beamed cheerfully at me. He looked… different. No armour, no sword, no shield. Just clean, fresh, civilian clothes, and good, well-polished boots. He seemed so relaxed, so free, and yet I could see the clouds in his eyes. I didn't know what he was seeing, whether this false, comfy little kitchen was the entirety of his vision, or just the run-off, but it worried me.

"I was just thinking about you," he said amiably. "Now here you are! Isn't that a marvellous coincidence?"

"Alistair…."

"You haven't met my sister, have you?"

The woman at the stove turned and smiled at me. She was lovely. Long, blonde hair flowed down her back, her slim figure draped in a pretty, blue dress. She looked like him… but she wasn't real. None of it was, I reminded myself.

A little girl, no more than three or four, tottered across the floor, reaching out for her mother with stubby pink stars of hands. Blonde ringlets framed pudgy, sticky cheeks. Alistair's not-sister bent down and scooped up the child, and I fought back the warmth that started to rise in me.

_Not real. _

I could almost taste his belief. It was there on his face; that shiny, desperate intensity, as if every shred of his determination was focused on the dream. I wasn't sure whether it had consumed him, or if he was keeping _it _going.

The woman straightened up, the child on her hip, and for a brief moment her gaze caught mine. I shuddered, recognising the hard, pupilless eyes of a demon. It stared at me, the soft, pretty lips of its make-believe face caught somewhere between a delicate smile and a challenging snarl.

It knew me for what I was, just as I knew it… but it wasn't giving up without a fight.

I glanced at Alistair, but he was oblivious, still chattering enthusiastically.

"It really is wonderful, you know. We've so much lost time to catch up on, but we're one big, happy family, at long last! You'll have to meet the children. All of them. There's… well, there's… a lot of them. I lose count."

He frowned slightly, as if catching at a loose thread, realising that something was out of place. I should have jumped on it then, made him look, _really _look, at the dream, but I wasn't quick enough. Alistair blinked, shook his head, and smiled distantly at me.

"One big, happy family," he repeated, his voice slightly husky, his eyes dark and hazy. "And now you're here, too. Isn't that great? Are you staying?"

I bit my lip. _Poor sod_. Twin surges of rage and pity coursed through me, and I reached for something to say, something that might start to chip through the dreams that wreathed him… the dreams he was clinging to.

"You seem very, er, content," I ventured.

"I am." Alistair nodded fervently. "I'm happier than I've been my entire life. Isn't that strange? I thought being a Grey Warden would make me happy… that I'd belong. But I didn't. Not really. I-I belong here, though. And I'm happy." His smile widened, but grew a touch melancholy. "I really am."

The not-sister creature slipped a dainty, possessive hand into the crook of his elbow.

"I'm overjoyed to have my little brother back," she said, and I wondered if I was the only one who could see her lips were moving at a slightly different speed to the words. She gave me a knife-like sneer, more a baring of teeth than a smile. "I'll never let him out of my sight again!"

A shiver crawled down my spine. The room seemed to flicker around us, and I was aware of the children—whatever they really were—creeping back in from the dark corners, drawing close and staring. Alistair was fighting it, somewhere in there, even if he didn't know it. The children were beginning to look a little… off, their legs and arms a touch too long, fingers oddly attenuated, their faces grown too sharp and too thin.

Alistair blinked again and looked faintly confused. The demon squeezed his arm, and bile burned in the back of my throat. It suddenly seemed very important—vitally, achingly important—that the creature did not touch him.

Whatever it thought, it did not own him. I would see to that.

"How lovely," I said sweetly. "But d'you think I could borrow him for a second? We have business elsewhere."

I reached out, meaning to grab hold of his sleeve, but Alistair pulled away.

"No. I… don't think I'll be coming. Sorry."

"But…." I began, not really knowing why I was quite so stung by his refusal, too surprised to try to understand it. "The Blight…. What—"

He gave me an odd look, full of sadness and defeat and yet oddly liberated, as if he was finally giving vent to a truth he'd held close for too long.

"I'm sorry. Really. But I don't want to spend my whole life fighting, only to end up dead in a pit along with rotting darkspawn corpses."

The words landed on me like a weighted glove, but I couldn't stop to think about them. I blinked, trying to find the way into his sealed, guarded world. If I could just make him _look_….

The demon smirked, and rested the cheek of its pretty, false face against his shoulder, staring levelly at me all the while.

"Well, Alistair, is your friend staying for supper?"

The voice was light, musical… like laughter. I wanted to stay, I realised. I wanted to believe, and to sit at a table with smiling, happy people, and eat fresh bread slathered with butter, and—

_No!_

"Yes… say you'll stay. I'd like that."

Alistair had that unsettling, vacant smile on his face again, and I shuddered.

"Goldanna's a great cook. Maybe she'll make her mince pie." He covered the demon's hand with his, and looked imploringly at the woman he saw in his mind. "You can, can't you?"

"Of course, dear brother." The creature shook out its golden curls, and gave a charming, delicate giggle. "Anything for you."

Its eyes flashed as it looked at me, lips bowed into a nastily triumphant curve.

Fury beat in my throat; I could not let it win, and the anger burst out, rash and harsh in my voice.

"I'm not staying, Alistair, and neither are you."

He frowned, looking at me with unfocused eyes, and the demon's smile widened. The burn of anger turned to icy dread. We might be trapped within the Fade, but how easy would it be for the creature to make him fight me?

I shook the thoughts, not willing to even imagine it. Besides, none of this was real—and if I couldn't get us out of here, nothing would ever be real again, until we withered away, not even conscious of our own deaths.

"You're acting really strangely," Alistair said reproachfully, and shook his head. "It's… it's not like you at all."

"And this isn't you, either!" I protested. "Look at this. It's not real. It's not—"

"Stop it!" He shook his head again, harder, an adamant refusal. "Why can't you be happy for me? I… I thought you, of all people, would understand."

That brought me up short, my mouth hanging open and the lost ends of words trailing empty and unsaid.

"I have everything I ever wanted," Alistair said hollowly, looking at a distant point about two inches to the right of my ear. He blinked, and fixed me with a dreamy, glazed smile. "I think you should stay. In fact, your odd behaviour is probably brought on by hunger. Now come and have some pie. I promise you'll feel better."

He was looking right through me, and Maker only knew what he saw. I sighed.

"Bloody idiot shem," I muttered, though I only half meant it.

His dreamy smile dipped a bit, and a slight frown dented his brow. "Hmm?"

The not-sister gave me a glittering smile.

"Are you sure you won't stay for supper?" it said, in those chirpy, syrupy tones.

"You don't fool me, demon," I growled, glaring into the pupilless, blank eyes.

The smile became a snarl, and the voice lost its false glitter, a darker tone echoing inside my head.

_He is ours. Nothing you say will convince him otherwise. He sees only what we want him to see._

I scowled, refusing to accept it. Once more, I reached out, and I grabbed Alistair's wrist, feeling the tightness of sinew, the warmth of his skin, and the silent hum of a pulse beating too fast. I dug my fingers in, pinched hard, wrenched when he tried to pull away.

"Look at me! Listen—"

"Ow, that really—"

"—is this what Duncan would want you to do?"

Sometimes, cruelty is a hot knife, paring away the things that kindness cannot.

Alistair was a good head taller than me, not to mention heavier and made mainly of the densely packed muscle that comes from years of training. As he looked down at me, the fog beginning to lift from his face, I realised how totally defenceless and vulnerable so much of him was.

"Don't you remember Ostagar?" I hissed, fingers biting into his wrist. "Ishal? D'you think Duncan died down there on the field—ripped apart by darkspawn—so you could stay here and eat pie?"

Hurt sluiced across those hazel eyes. It wasn't my proudest moment.

"That… that was… a long time ago," Alistair mumbled, sounding uncertain. "It—"

"No. Look at this place, Alistair. _Really_ look. How did you get here, hm? What happened?"

He frowned, and his resistance to my grasp weakened. I loosened my grip; my fingers had left red marks on his skin that faded to white as he rubbed them absently.

"Fine," he muttered gracelessly. "If it makes you happy. You're not usually so— no, wait. It… it's a little fuzzy. That's… strange."

He shook his head, and I let my hand fall to my side. He was starting to see, and the whole place was flickering around us. The demon, still wearing its false face, began to look worried.

"Alistair?" The light, musical voice seemed slower, deeper. "Come and have some tea."

It raised one small, delicate hand, but he shook his head, swaying back, out of its reach.

"No… wait. I-I remember a… tower. The Circle. It was… under attack. There were… there were demons, and—"

The not-sister parted those soft, pink lips, its neat, pearly teeth bared in a growl of frustration. The walls of the cottage were thinning and the attenuated shadows of children had begun to pale, turning to streaks of mist again the fog.

Alistair looked at me, confused, wide-eyed and hurting, his mouth bowed around a soundless groan of disbelief. Betrayal coloured his face as the dream fractured, and I could see him fighting it, torn just as I had been between hating the lie and wanting so badly to stay folded within it.

I nodded. "You're right. And one trapped us in the Fade, where we are now."

"A-Are you saying… this is a-a dream?" He took one sad, final look around the cosy little kitchen, with its clean-scrubbed floor and the walls through which chinks of light were already beginning to seep. "But it's so real…."

Just as real as he wanted it to be, I thought. I touched his arm again, gently this time. At least, I supposed, my dream had been based on memories. Had he really had nothing for the demon to pull from him? No ragged ends of happiness, stored away somewhere like old letters or children's shoes?

"I'm sorry. Come on, we—"

"Of course it's real!" the demon snapped, making one last effort at keeping its prize. "Now come and wash up before supper and I—"

"No." Alistair shook his head wearily. "Something… something doesn't feel right. I… I think I have to go."

He gave me a pinched, tired look, and I just felt so overwhelmingly guilty at what I'd done, as if I should have left him there… left him happy. I blinked, pushing the thoughts away. It was this place, that was all. The Fade, and the things it did to your head. I tugged Alistair's wrist.

"Come on. Come with me, then."

He nodded, and the demon gave a low growl of rage. It spoke, the ends of the false human voice tied up with that dark, spiteful echo.

_No! He is ours! We would rather see him dead than free!_

It roared, and the world—the cottage, the stove, the pretty blue dress and the golden curls—fell away, winding around us in a sheeting, echoing whirl of violent darkness. We held firm, eyes clenched shut against the howling void and, eventually, the noise faded, leaving nothing but a sucking, awful silence behind it.

I opened my eyes cautiously, aware of the solidity of Alistair's broad frame at my shoulder. Odd, I thought, that we should have such definite physicality—that _he_ should—in this place, where nothing was real.

I found the emptiness of the Fade incongruous. The fog that swaddled everything, choking the life and the reality from it, blanketed out so many of the other worlds, the other dreamers… and yet I knew they were there. The Fade was a crowded, complex thing, but it felt so completely desolate.

Alistair stepped forwards, blinking like a drunk caught in the dawn's first cold light.

"Wh…. G-Goldanna?" He rubbed his forehead and groaned. "I can't believe it… how did I not see this earlier?"

"The, er, demon probably did something to your head," I said kindly.

"Mm." He turned back to me with an expression of intense embarrassment that almost masked the hurt in his face, and winced. "You, uh… you won't tell everyone how easily fooled I was, will you?"

I shot him a small smile and shook my head. "Secret's safe with me."

Alistair nodded ruefully. "Thanks. Can… can we go? I mean, how—?"

_Find your strength. _That was what Niall had told me, and there was strength in numbers, wasn't there? The demon feared that… took pains to keep the dreamers it trapped apart.

I looked towards the twisted, knotted paths of the Fade's uneven, coiling firmament, and wondered whether they really were changing in front of me, ever shifting and dissembling.

"We find the others," I said, narrowing my eyes, trying to see clearly past the dreams and the falsehoods. "Somehow."

_**~o~O~o~**_

Travelling that peculiar realm was not as bad with a friend at my side, although Alistair remained subdued, feet scuffing at the strange ground like a boy kicking up autumn leaves.

Things certainly felt different. Other dreams, other worlds did not claw at me the way they had before; it was almost as if the Fade was watching us, waiting to see what we did next. The demon, I suspected, was completely aware of our actions.

I told Alistair about Niall, and the Litany, and Uldred's apparent… change. He nodded grimly, and gave me a brief but enlightening lecture on the dark plane where blood magic and demonology met, and madness walked in the footsteps of death and terror. I didn't really want to ask how he knew his subject matter so well but, even in this place of dreams, I could see him worrying at the flat gold disc of a totem he wore on his left hand.

We would, I thought, need more than lucky charms to see us through.

At last, and despite every false turn of the path ahead—sometimes blocked by fallen rock, sometimes spongy as winter mud—we found our way to Leliana's dream.

I smelled incense, and dust, and as we drew nearer to the kneeling figure at once both a speck on the horizon and a shape close enough to touch, I thought I heard the low murmur of a distant chant. Our footsteps seemed to echo on smooth flagstones yet, when I looked down, I saw nothing but the honeycomb texture of the Fade's odd, living ground. Something dark brown and snake like seemed to shift under my gaze, like a tree root blindly butting its way to water. I looked away, looked up… and found myself in the small, simple, sanctified space of Lothering's chantry. Dust motes danced in the air.

"Maker…." Alistair murmured, and I glanced at him. He raised his brows. "Can you see…?"

I nodded. Ahead of us, Leliana knelt before the altar in her lay sister's robes, hands clasped before her head as she rocked in earnest prayer. A tall woman with grey hair and broad, solid features stood beside her, one hand on her shoulder. She turned as we approached, and regarded us with a quiet serenity that was in stark contrast to everything I saw in her blank, pupilless eyes. It offended me, somehow, at a deeper level than I would have expected, to see a demon posing as a priest.

"Leliana?" Alistair started forwards. "Leliana, we—"

"Please, do not vex her," the demon said, in tranquil, measured tones. "She needs quiet and solitude, to calm her mind and heal her heart."

Alistair drew breath to challenge the creature, but Leliana rose from the altar, turning to us in confusion.

"What? I don't understand… what are you two doing here? Have you come for the service?"

She brightened at that, but I shook my head.

"Listen, this is a dream. You're in the Fade. None of this is real."

The demon that guarded her seemed a weaker soldier than the one Alistair had been feeding. It pulled back the lips of its human face and gave a soundless snarl, but I could see the illusion beginning to quake around us already.

Leliana frowned. "Isn't real? Whatever do you—"

"Think about it," Alistair said. "How did you get here?"

She blinked, a delicate furrow appearing between her pale brows. "I… I came to Lothering for peace," she murmured. "The Chantry asks nothing of me, and accepts everything. I—"

"But you left," he insisted, "didn't you? Don't you remember why you left the cloister?"

"That's right," I put in. "Your vision. You remember that, surely?"

Recognition flickered in those glass-chip eyes and, slowly, Leliana nodded. The walls of the dream-chantry thinned a little more, and the smell of incense seemed to fade.

"I remember… you're right, there _was _a sign…."

The demon-priest reached out a hand that was both pale, blue-veined flesh, and a darker, gnarled and twisted claw. It touched Leliana's shoulder gently.

"Come now, we have discussed this… 'sign' of yours. The Maker does not care to interfere in the affairs of mortals. What you call a vision was most likely the work of demons."

Alistair snorted. "You'd know about that, wouldn't you?"

The creature bared its teeth again, its very form seeming to flicker before us, just as the world it was trying to maintain appeared to be dying.

"Don't listen, Leliana," I said, thinking back to the night we'd spoken of her vision, camped up near the Highway, ankle-deep in mud and rabbit guts. "You know it's true. You feel the Maker's presence all around you, don't you? Will you take the priest's word over something you _know _in your heart?"

She fixed me with that strange, complicated gaze—such a mix of innocence and terrible knowing—and her mouth twisted as she pulled away from the demon and its beguiling touch.

"What she says is right: the Maker cares for us. I believe He misses His wayward children as much as we miss Him and, though my vision may not _be _from him, still it guides me to do what is right." Leliana shook her head, staring at the demon as the last shreds of sanctity tumbled into nothingness around us. "My revered mother knew this. I don't know who you are, but you are not her."

Desperate now, the demon tried another tack. It wheedled, holding out its hands, its voice shifting and crackling as the illusion peeled away.

"But this is your home, child… your refuge. Do you truly wish to leave the comfort of this place behind? Stay, and know peace."

Leliana was stepping backwards, towards us, and though the demon followed her, it seemed to weaken with every step.

"There is no need," Leliana said, sounding surprisingly calm. "I carry the peace of the Chantry in my heart."

She stared levelly at the creature, which appeared to enrage it. Losing almost all semblance of the form it had worn now—the image of the priest a ragged, wispy picture, lop-sided and fuzzy—it roared in fury:

"You are going nowhere, girl! I will not permit it!"

"You command me no longer!" Leliana cried back. "Now begone!"

Once again, there was that ear-splitting shriek, the roar of darkness and gritty, violent shadows… and we were left, alone, desolate on the empty, insane landscape of the Fade.

For all her bravery, Leliana now looked pale and shaken.

"Holy Maker! She… she was a—"

"A demon," I supplemented. "Yes."

"Well done," Alistair added vaguely. "With the, er… ahem. Did you not know at all, then? Did it really seem real? I mean, really, _really_—"

"Really real," Leliana said weakly. "It did, yes."

He looked relieved. "Oh. Right."

"We need to find Wynne," I said, looking towards the place that once been a path. It was blocked now, overgrown by a thicket of those brownish, briar-like roots that, the more I thought about it, seemed less like vegetation and more like tentacles.

_**~o~O~o~**_

We found Wynne sitting alone on the ground, just a solitary figure in the midst of the Fade's strange landscape. At first, it seemed like a trap, and I hesitated.

She sat almost perfectly still, her right hand in her lap and her left moving rhythmically in the air at her side, as if she was stroking something… washing something, I realised. Then, when I saw the tears on her cheeks, I understood.

The left hand passed an invisible thing to the right, and she moved as if she was dipping it into a bowl of imaginary water, squeezing out the cloth that only she could see.

"What _is_ she doing?" Alistair murmured.

I let out the deep breath I'd been holding, and unpleasant memories came with it, scudding to the surface when I'd kept them buried for such a long time.

"Laying out a body," I said.

I hadn't done much to help Mother. In all honesty, I hadn't wanted to, not from the first moment I touched her and found her so cold, so… waxy. Barely like flesh at all. I'd just fetched and carried and watched as Nera, the hahren's sister, washed away the blood and the dirt, and I'd helped to wrap her in linen before we carried her up to paupers' field.

"Wynne?" Leliana was moving forwards, her hand stretched out towards the mage.

Wynne didn't look round, didn't stop. She shook her head, and her words were quiet, their edges rough-hewn with grief.

"Make forgive me. I failed them all. They died and I did not stop it…."

I didn't want to know what she was seeing: the bodies of her fellow mages, or those of apprentices? The shrunken, pale forms of little apprentices, maybe, no more than ten years old and so ill-prepared for what they'd had to face.

"Don't believe it, Wynne," I said, though I knew it wouldn't do much good.

Anger coursed through me at the creature that kept us here. Dreams or memories, nightmares or blissful reveries, these were _our_ hidden places, our private wounds and our secret hopes, and they should not be opened up like this, split and pulled out to be pawed around by some filthy demon.

She wasn't listening. Leliana was at her shoulder now, reaching out a hand to the slippery fabric of her robe.

"It isn't real," she began, but Wynne shook her touch irritably.

"How can I disbelieve what I see, what I smell and feel?" she demanded, glaring up at Leliana, her face taut and hard. "_Death_. Can you not see it? It's all around us…."

Wynne looked away, and I could only imagine the makeshift mortuary she was seeing. I recalled the corpses in the great hall; mages and templars falling side-by-side as they struggled to bring down unspeakable horrors… and the warped, ruined flesh of the abominations.

Leliana knelt beside her, trying again to break through, but Wynne was growing impatient.

"Listen… you're in the Fade, Wynne. This is a dream. It's not—"

"Leave me to my grief, can't you? It is all I have left!"

The older woman turned her head away, determined to stay shackled to her agony. Thin hands with veins that stood proudly on their backs moved tenderly through the air as she returned to the bodies of those she believed she could see, and the raw edges of her words were whetted with regret.

"Why was I spared, if not to help them? I failed them… failed them all. Let me be, and I shall bury their bones, scatter their ashes to the four winds, and mourn their passing until I too am dead."

Leliana glanced up at me over Wynne's shoulder, and shook her head.

"Well, we have to do _something_," Alistair said.

He crossed to the mage, trying to make her look at him, adopting that crisp, authoritative tone that—when we'd first met—made me think he was some minor gentry's brat.

"Wynne… whatever this is, you have to fight it." He hunkered down in front of her. "This isn't real. You didn't _fail _anyone… you saved those people, remember? Just leave this and come with—"

I groaned inwardly. He meant well, but I wasn't sure I'd ever known anyone with such a gift for sticking his foot in it. Wynne stared at him, aghast, and the pain in her face even cut through those familiar clouds.

"Didn't fail? I did not _fail_ them?" Her mouth tightened, and the hurt began to harden into a cold, concentrated fury. "They are dead, are they not? They died… such horrible deaths, and you think nothing of this? Your blatant disregard for the souls of these children strikes me as being utterly inappropriate."

I could all too easily imagine Wynne bringing that sharp tongue of hers to bear on an errant apprentice, all disappointment and indisputable reprimands. Alistair looked uncertain, like a chastened schoolboy, but he rallied.

"Look, just think about what you're doing here… how you got here. Don't you remember—"

She shook her head, her high principles solidifying into a stubborn refusal to listen. "I do not know what you're trying to tell me. Why must you make this more painful?"

"Because we're trying to help!" he protested, growing frustrated.

I could see this was getting us nowhere. Wynne frowned, fixing him with that clear blue gaze, regret and disillusionment hauntingly condensed into those twin shards of sapphire.

"Help?" she repeated. "Help? And where were _you _when this happened, Alistair? I trusted you as an ally and you were nowhere to be found!"

He looked as if she'd slapped him in the face, mouth hanging open around a half-formed protest, and eyes bruised and shocked.

"I…."

"It is just as it was at the battle," Wynne said hollowly, and she seemed to be both looking at him and looking straight through him, but into what dark memories, I didn't want to know. "We were fighting, dying… and where were you? Where was the beacon?"

A small, dry noise—part way between a croak and a gasp—left Alistair's throat and, when he managed to speak, his voice was hoarse. Wynne couldn't have hurt him worse if she'd tried… and I wondered if she even knew.

"The… the tower was overrun. I-It wasn't—"

He broke off, looking to me to back him up, I supposed, to repeat those mantras we told ourselves, those good, solid reasons that were meant to make everything all right.

"Perhaps it does not matter," Wynne said darkly, staring back into the empty spaces before her, which must have been filled with so many horrible dreams. "Loghain betrayed us. He would have retreated regardless… he sought only Cailan's crown that day, not to defeat the darkspawn."

"But they must _be_ defeated," I heard myself say, as I picked my way across the tangled, unruly ground. "Mustn't they? We can't give up, Wynne, no matter the cost."

I knelt before her, and she looked at me with a strange, poignant mix of muddled confusion and deep certainty, that thin-lipped mouth curved into an apprehensive line.

"But…."

I reached out, took gentle hold of the hand she thought still clasped a wet cloth—the hand she thought was still ministering to the dead—and brought it in front of her, willing her to see the dream for what it was.

"We all lose people," I said softly. "But you can't live in grief. Not when there's still so much to do."

Her frown deepened, and my own words echoed in my ears. I was the one afraid to let go of my memories, my grief… my guilt. It was I who feared both holding the past tight enough to stifle it, and letting it stream away into the wind, and now I thought to offer advice?

However laughable it seemed, it appeared to be working. Wynne blinked and shook her head.

"No, I… the Circle is lost. The tower has fallen. There is nothing to—"

"It hasn't fallen yet," Alistair said. "You saved all those people, Wynne. You protected them. There _are_ survivors."

"I… I don't… remember," she murmured.

"Concentrate," Leliana put in, adding her encouragement. "You can do it. You _know_ you can. This is nothing but a dream, Wynne. There is always hope."

The mage pinched the bridge of her nose. "It is so difficult to focus. It feels as though something is… stopping me from concentrating. I have never had so much trouble before."

"Yes, well you've probably never been held captive by a demon before," Alistair muttered.

Wynne loosed a tired, shallow sigh. "I… I think you are all right. It would be better if I were to step away from here for a little while. I need to… to clear my head."

She blinked again but, when she looked up, the fog was lifting from her face. Just as my dream had broken to pieces around me in a whirling pit of horror and anguish, I could see the hidden time collapsing back in on Wynne. Yet, unlike me, she did not quiver or wail. She merely bowed her head, her hand shading her eyes and her shoulders rising and falling to the rhythm of quick, light breaths, until it all subsided.

Before I'd left the alienage, I'd never imagined humans were capable of such dignity.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Niall had hinted at how we might defeat the demon that had ensnared us, but it seemed to me that simply finding each other was not enough. We were together, but still trapped in the Fade. I envisioned more endless paths, more stumbling and blind rambling through all the impossible worlds—all those eye-bending places were there was no true concept of time or space or distance—but that was not the case.

The world shifted around us, the eerie wisps of fog trembling as the very ground rose up to surround us, trapping us in a ring of rocks like jagged teeth. The sky—or whatever it was that passed for it here, textured with that same smoky, yellowish fog—grew darker, greying with the stink of sulphur and fire.

"Well, now," purred a familiar, laconic voice. "What do we have here? Escapees?"

The demon's laughter echoed from unseen places, at once above us and all around us, and we pressed together, back-to-back in defence against this invisible enemy.

The creature seemed to melt out of the rock, gliding towards us as if it was made of no more than a breath of summer breeze. It did not wear the same form as it had in the tower. No foul, corrupted flesh, no puppet corpse of a mage-turned-abomination cloaking its spirit form. It was like nothing I'd ever imagined… nothing I ever wanted to see again. Brightly coloured robes covered its long, attenuated limbs and torso, a coruscating curtain of opulence that might as well have been woven from the air itself, so light and diaphanous were they. Above that rose a neck like that of some giant insect, oddly bent and ridged, yet the hands that peeped from the overlong sleeves—and the lower part of a face just visible from within the shadowed recess of a cowl—were as grey and bony as a skeleton.

I shuddered, and the creature's laughter rolled around us.

"My, my… you _do _have some gall. But playtime is over. You all have to go back now."

"You will not hold us, demon," Wynne said, her voice as unbending as iron. "We found each other in this place and you cannot stand against us."

It tipped its sightless head to the side, and extending one of those dead hands towards us, beckoning stiffly.

"Come, now. If you go back quietly, I'll do better this time. I could make you _so _much happier…."

At my side, I felt Alistair's stance stiffen.

"I'll make my own happiness, thank you," he said curtly.

"Seconded," I agreed. "We'll do nothing you say, demon. You may as well let us go now."

"Or what?" it enquired, tilting its head again in that incongruous, bird-like gesture. "You will fight me? Hmm… perhaps I should teach you to bow to your betters, mortal!"

The demon raised those stick-like arms, and I doubt any of us saw it coming. There was just a great rush of energy, like a thunderclap, and then a bright flash, and the awful lancing pain of something searing through me. It was like lightning, and it jumped from each of us to the next, a thin blue thread of fire that burned and crippled. I recall crying out, dropping to the ground… and wondering where your soul went if you died this side of the Veil.

"This is the Fade," Wynne shouted, as whatever the assault had been dispersed and we scrambled to our feet, preparing to scatter. "Nothing is real, except your will!"

I didn't understand what she meant at first, until white light flared from her palms, bursting forth in a huge, all-enveloping sheet that rushed over everything. I flung up an arm, shielding my eyes, but I felt her magic changing things and—when I looked afresh—we were no longer clad in the vestments of our dreams. Leliana's Chantry robe was gone, replaced by a suit of glimmering mail and a bow of white ash. Alistair, encased in highly polished plate, wielded a brightly painted shield and shining sword and, when I looked down at myself, I discovered I was laced into leather armour studded with bright steel rivets, a blade in each hand. Their weight was phenomenal; like swinging a feather through the air.

A slow smile spread across my face. The demon, by contrast, did not appear to be so confident.

It was the strangest fight I'd ever known. Everything was defined by magic, by pretences and impossibilities and—just as in the weird, unreal world of dreams—the rules kept changing. Weight, force, gravity… nothing was normal, but the pain was certainly physical enough. When the blows landed, there was blood and torn flesh, both ours and the demon's, and though the song of metal shimmered all around me, it was wrapped up in the disorientating, ragged fog of the Fade.

It felt almost like dreaming of a dream; like being aware of dreaming, and yet unable to change course, tossed and mauled on the crest of something by turns both horrible and enlightening. The demon shaped and moulded the Fade around it, each subtle twist of those long, bony hands plucking new horrors from the air around us. I found myself thrown against rock, dashed to the ground… burned by fire and numbed by ice. Wynne was the only constant, calling to us to remember that the demon was real, not the things it caused us to see. She fought with such grim determination, such precision—every attack countered, every movement parried. I would never have pictured her as such a cold-blooded, ruthless opponent, but I was intensely grateful for it.

The demon shifted its form, time and again. It was a great, gnarled bear, or a creature made entirely of fire, or an ogre, like the huge, rancid beast that had almost killed me at the Tower of Ishal… and then, just as quickly, it returned to that horrible, dry shape, cloaked in facsimiles of silk. It rose up, pushed us back with a wave of violent energy—that shattering blue flame that jumped and burned like lightning—and gave a tremendous, shrieking roar that seemed to be part defeat and part pure, inexhaustible anger.

We were blinded, scattered… and then it was gone, and the world was dissipating around us, fading ribbons of clogged, yellowish air that fizzed gently as they passed into nothingness.

I stopped for breath—did we even need to breathe here?—and, panting, looked wildly at the others. I opened my mouth, but the words disappeared, snatched from me like a shout into a fierce storm, lost on a wind that wasn't there. Everything seemed to grow thinner, dimmer, and I could feel it all slipping away.

Was I waking? Or had I never really been sleeping at all?


	15. Chapter 15

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

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No one spoke for a while. The dim, fetid chamber was airless, filthy… and, oddly, it felt much smaller than it had when the abomination had been filling it up, towering over us. I didn't know if we truly had defeated it in the Fade, or if it had just… receded, and might be lying in wait for us somewhere else.

The body the demon had been wearing lay crumpled on the bloody floor, a corrupted mass of swollen flesh, skin split with lesions and torn with foul, oozing wounds. It stank.

Wynne groaned as she got to her feet and I looked to her, tangled up in gratitude for all she'd done—we would surely never have escaped the Fade without her—and fear that I'd asked too much. She looked drawn and bleary-eyed, though the fuzzy edges melted away as she stared at the other bodies piled up in the chamber. To me, those blood-slicked slips of silk and torn robes encased only corpses, sickening in their bloated, blackened appearance and reminders of how hard the Circle had fallen. Yet, to her, they must have been so much more; friends, apprentices… people to whom she'd had obligations, duties of care. I couldn't begin to imagine how betrayed she must feel, and I searched for something to say, some useless few words to throw to her, even if only so I could let her know she wasn't alone.

"Wynne, I…."

I trailed off as she knelt stiffly beside Niall's body—just as lifeless as he'd predicted—and, with efficient precision, rifled through the pockets of his robe. I stared at the pallid, sunken face, trying to reconcile it with the man I'd met—or thought I'd met, or _dreamed_ that… well, with the vision I'd had in the Fade. That seemed like a more acceptable way of thinking about it. Rationalising it, maybe. I didn't know. Frankly, I didn't want to think of it ever again. I wanted to get out of this filthy, stinking place, with its dark, cold stone walls and the stench of decomposition, and I… I so wished I'd stayed in the dream.

Next to the world that spooled out around me, huge and complex and terrible, I felt smaller than I ever had before.

Wynne straightened, holding a thick piece of folded parchment in her fingers. For the briefest of moments before she stood, her hand softly skimmed Niall's hair, and a look of indescribable pain flickered over her face. It hardened as she unfolded and read the parchment, replaced by a tight, angry frown. Her lips moved soundlessly as she committed the Litany to memory, then she snatched it away from her face abruptly, folding it once more and tucking it into a pouch at her belt.

"We must get to the Harrowing Chamber," she said crisply. "Immediately. Whatever Uldred is doing, it ends. Now."

With that, the mage limped towards the heavy door on the far side of the chamber. Determination practically sparked off her, the rigidity of her body and the set of her narrow, angular face daring any of us to comment. I glanced at Leliana, who just shook her head. She seemed pale-faced and a little wobbly, and she wasn't the only one. I hadn't felt quite so dislocated, so unsure of my own place in the world, since the Joining ritual.

"Let's just… just go," Alistair muttered, lurching off after Wynne.

He didn't look any better than the rest of us: chalk-white, sweaty, and moving like a broken puppet, all odd ends of joints and stiff, unresponsive limbs.

I followed, sniffing the air. Something seemed different. The clamminess, the quality of the shadows… I couldn't help wondering how long we'd been trapped in the Fade, how much time had passed in the real world. I'd read stories like that as a child; adventurers whose souls were bound into the webs of wraiths and demons, and who returned to their homes centuries after leaving, only to find all was dust and ashes. I'd just never thought it could really happen.

My thoughts turned briefly to Connor, and the castle. Had we been gone too long? Would he have turned again, and forced Morrigan to make the choice I had so churlishly left her with? She wouldn't hesitate, I imagined. She was a great deal stronger than me. And Sten… well, if the qunari were half as terrible as the Chantry told us, he'd probably have no qualms in beheading a small boy.

They'd have to do it, though, wouldn't they? And even if we did get out of here alive, we'd have failed. I thought, then, of dying entombed in that tower, never seeing the sky again, and knowing as the last breath left my body that Ferelden would fall to the darkspawn, swept away in a tide of evil. The notion that I could make a difference had never seemed more ridiculous, yet I felt myself respond to the image, resolve toughening around the tiny core of hope that we could—just maybe, somehow—get out of here alive, and get help. Or something, at least. I didn't know what. I couldn't think anymore, couldn't plan or analyse. I just loped after Wynne, and felt the eyeless hulks of the Tower's walls sneer down at me, ancient carvings crawling through their shadows like cockroaches.

_**~o~O~o~**_

The Harrowing Chamber occupied the very uppermost reaches of the tower. I didn't dare ponder what its significance had been back when Kinloch Hold was new—Maker only knew what those Tevinter bastards had got up to in places like this—but the approach to it had obviously been designed to impress. There were more of those huge oaken doors, meant to keep abominations at bay, and the broken remnants of statues and carvings. Shreds of tapestries hung from the walls, reminding me of the state we'd seen Redcliffe Castle in. What manner of creature was it that escaped the Fade and was so intent on glorying in physical destruction? I doubted I'd ever dream again; even sleep would be a battleground.

We found the meeting room, or what was left of it, on the corridor just below the Chamber. Scorch marks, bodies, shattered chairs and upturned, broken tables… it was horrible, and it left us in no doubt that Uldred had planned his coup well in advance.

At the foot of the staircase that led up into the spire, we found the body of a young templar, chestnut-haired and contorted in agony. He had not yet begun to swell or rot, but it might have been better if he had… at least that way I would not have seen the pitted wounds on his face, which looked so unsettlingly as if he'd tried to put out his own eyes before he died.

We bunched closer together, the four of us edging up towards the Harrowing Chamber with weapons drawn and hearts thudding, no real notion of what we might find. Wynne's whispered words about staying close, not allowing ourselves to be left open to the foul potential of blood magic, were cold comfort.

"Will the Litany really work?" I wanted to know. "I mean, can you—?"

"Well, we shall see, won't we?" she said darkly, as we approached those massive doors. "We can but hope."

"Oh," I murmured. "Good."

Light flashed from the chamber before we even got there, spilling out on the flagstones from beneath the great doors. Screams, too. My pulse thudded dully, dizziness tugging at me as every instinct urged me to run. I disliked how good I was getting at ignoring those feelings; they were the kind of impulses that could keep a person alive.

Still, nothing prepared me for what we found in the Harrowing Chamber.

There had been more survivors than those who had initially fled. Many of the senior mages were, and I wondered if that had been Uldred's intention, or whether perhaps he had hunted them, scouring the corridors for the choicest prizes.

He had them shackled, their hands bound to stop them fighting, their bodies weakened and brutalised. Abominations thronged the chamber, at least half a dozen of them, their fingers pinching and probing, their foul faces pressed close to the chained mages… I knew torture when I saw it, whether it was happening in body or mind.

Against the furthest wall, a large man with a matted grey beard was slumped on the floor, his weight hanging from the manacles that bound him. He raised his head, for a second looking directly at us across the horrific expanse of the chamber, and I heard Wynne's intake of breath.

"Irving!" she whispered. "Maker, what have they—"

There was little opportunity to ponder, or to fully investigate the grisly scene. As quickly as he'd spotted us, the First Enchanter looked away, trying not to draw attention our way… but it was futile. However busy the creatures were, whatever thriving manufactory this was, our presence was out of place and, as quietly as we'd tried to creep in, we had been detected.

Uldred swept up the length of the chamber towards us, and I had not been expecting a man. Had Niall not said he was… changed? I saw only a human, in mage's robes, with a great hooked nose and the shiny pate of a bald head—until he drew close enough for me to see his eyes. They were black, soulless… devoid of life but full of a terrible, crackling energy. It made the hair rise on the back of my neck, and gave me the strong urge to peel my skin off and wash it from the inside.

"Intruders!" Uldred barked, as if making a witty joke rather than a dangerous observation. There was a high-pitched, brittle quality to his voice. "Well, now… I bid you all welcome. Care to join in our revels?"

I recognised him, I realised. He'd been at Ostagar, at Cailan's war council—just one face in a sea that I'd felt I had no place among. Tight lips and murmurs of folly and vapid glory-hunting… how quickly had he raced back here after the battle? Had he been in league with Loghain the whole time?

Possibilities—paranoid assumptions, perhaps—raced in my mind, and filled my blood with the bitter sting of betrayal. It was the same hard fury that I heard in Wynne's voice as she stepped forwards, raising her hand to the level of her hip, the way I supposed one who could not wield magic might draw a sword.

"Uldred! Look at what you have done here… you…. It…."

She stopped, the sheer weight of her anger choking the words, and I wasn't sure if I imagined the faint glow of blue that seemed to outline her hand.

Uldred simply smiled or, at least, slid his lips back over his teeth.

"Ah, Wynne… I should have known you wouldn't understand. I am _freeing_ our brothers and sisters, can't you see? Showing them how to shed their larval form, and embrace the pleasure of becoming something greater… something glorious!"

He raised his arms and loosed a high, glittering laugh that reeked of insanity. Behind him, the abominations were drawing closer, gliding across the blood-spattered stones and tilting their over-sized, flesh-welted heads with birdlike curiosity. I shifted my grip on my sword, eyes darting to take in every shadow and open expanse of the chamber's curved walls and vaulted architecture. There was little to use to our advantage. Nothing to hide behind… no way out.

"There is nothing glorious about this!" Wynne spat. "You're mad, Uldred. You're—"

"Oh, now, Wynne…. I could give you this gift. You and all mages. It would be so much easier if you just _accepted _it."

"Never! You will release the mages, Uldred. Release them, and—"

"I don't think so," he said levelly, affecting bored nonchalance. "Now, are you really going to make this tedious?"

That black, fire-glazed gaze passed briefly over me, then Leliana and Alistair. Uldred's smile became a sneer, and he sighed.

"Really? Not one of you has the intelligence to see the beauty of what we've uncovered here?"

I found my voice as I stepped forwards to stand at Wynne's shoulder. The mage was shaking with fury, her face deathly pale and her eyes blazing. My ill-fitting boots, one sole parting company from the worn leather, scuffed on the stone floor.

"All I see is filth, mage," I said, and the words echoed slightly, reinforcing how quiet the chamber had grown. "And it _will _stop."

The weight of years and habit got the better of me, and I spat on the flagstones. Uldred watched the action, and a light shiver of revulsion appeared to chase across his skin. If there was anything human left inside him, we both knew what the gesture meant.

The abominations pressed closer in and Uldred glared, his sneer turning to a true snarl.

"How… unfortunate," he said, and I didn't even see his hands move.

Wynne shouted, pushed me back. Light flared—white, blue, like blades to my eyes, flames echoing in my head—and it blanked out everything around me. I could hear yelling, and the wordless roars the abominations made… or that I assumed they did, because no human or elven mouth could possibly shape those sounds. I felt the shapes of bodies pushing through the blinding light, but even as it faded I couldn't see for the streaks of blue smeared across my vision. Something tore through the air ahead of me, less than ten inches from my gut, and I swayed backwards on instinct, aware that it looked like a huge claw, a hand malformed in ugly, cruel viciousness.

I looked up, and up… and Uldred was definitely no longer Uldred.

Where the mage had stood, an abomination towered, but it wasn't like the others. This mass of corrupt, weltering flesh had a form all its own; great, hideous limbs made of twined and corded muscle, joints shelled with spiny growths and arms tipped with massive, clawed hands. Its thick, bullish neck raised up a head in proportion with the bulky, enormous body—yet it bore none of the resemblance the other abominations did to their previous forms. A dozen shiny, black oval eyes, like those of a spider, winked at us from the folds of a horrific face split by mandibles and I knew, whatever demon Uldred had given himself to—whatever trade he had made in his lust for power—it was a damn sight worse than a simple confederacy with Teyrn Loghain.

The mandibles split open, revealing the cavernous, ribbed interior of a mouth like a hole torn through flesh, and the creature roared. It certainly had an impact. I think the whole chamber turned still, silent… and it felt as if we could have stood there, just staring in terror, until the monster wiped us out.

Wynne flung a bolt of energy straight up, and it caught the beetle-back eyes, singeing straight into one. Uldred gave a croaking shriek, and I shook my head, keenly aware of how poorly this could end.

He went for Wynne and I lashed out, dagger lancing into that enormous palm as it scythed towards us. It took more force than I thought I had to drive the blade in, and I was weak and exhausted. We hadn't come here expecting more violence… we'd wanted _help_. And… and it wasn't fair. I heard the soft hum of an arrow ripping through the air, and the howl as it took out another of the Uldred-demon's eyes. Ten more and he'd be fighting blind, I thought, not that it seemed like much of a comfort.

I found myself clinging to the great, fetid, purplish limb as the creature raised its arm, and I did what damage I could while I was there. The abominations that had flanked him were thronging around Wynne and she was doing what she could do to hold them off, with Alistair fighting his way across to her. Leliana had shouldered her bow in favour of those small, sharp, clever daggers she used so well, and as the demon tried to shake me off, I heard the death scream of the first abomination. A few moments later, and the world blurred as I fell, scudding along the flagstones on my back, winded and tasting blood on my tongue.

"Unchain me!" A voice appeared to be shouting at me, and I shook my head blearily. "Quickly, unchain me, girl!"

I blinked, and realised I was lying at the feet of one of the shackled mages. Blood crusted the side of his face, and it occurred to me somewhere through the jumble of things making it so hard to think that, if Uldred had been trying to corrupt the survivors, then any one of them might have been a blood mage.

The human flexed impatiently against his bonds, his thin face contorting in frustration.

"Come on, quickly! We can help."

There were others… of course. I pulled myself up to my knees, blades clanging on the stones and breath burning in my lungs. Three… four mages, their robes bloodied and their faces the taut, wide-eyed masks of those who have seen true horror. Clumsy and breathless, I glanced at the manacles that bound the men. They were on lengths of chain looped through a central pulley, then bolted to the wall. Easy enough to keep their hands cinched up, I supposed, and their powers confined. The metal glowed faintly blue, too… enchanted? It seemed probable. Tackling the bonds of the mage nearest to me, I went for the manacles' hinge, and jammed my dagger against the join. It didn't work. Behind me, in the heat of the melee, I heard Alistair yell amid the almighty collision of flesh and steel. I didn't dare look, and a thwarted sob broke from me as, yet again, I failed to unclasp the cuffs. I moved instead to the point where the chain was bolted to the cold stone wall and, bracing my foot against the carved blocks, used my sword to try and lever the plate free. It groaned… these bindings were old, I realised. Did they chain the apprentices for their Harrowing rites? It didn't matter. My back and shoulders screamed but, with one last heave, the scrape and ping of metal met with the crack of protesting mortar, and the plate broke away from the stone, shooting the chain forwards and slackening the mages' bonds.

My sweaty, shaking hands struggled clumsily with my weapons, and I exchanged sword for dagger once more, trying again to wrest the pins from the manacles. The prisoners were better able to help with their hands no longer stretched above their heads and, with a fair amount of effort, I managed to get the first man unbound. He yelled 'look out' instead of 'thank you', however, and I didn't really know why until I turned to find myself almost face-to-face with one of Uldred's abominations.

It stared at me with those bulbous, milky eyes, the great fleshy polyps and bubbling masses of its deformed head almost making me long for the simplicity of the darkspawn. The thing lunged, and I yelled, blade up in defence and—before I even knew it—sinking into the mass of corded skin and sinew at its neck. They could bleed, that was sure enough. But, beyond that, what vestiges of humanity were left in the things? I couldn't tell, and I didn't think of it… I thought of nothing, just blindly hacking and stabbing as the creature flailed at me. Fingers like dry twigs scratched my face, and a bolt of crackling electrical energy seared across my shoulder, signalling that the mages I'd tried to help were at last free. They felled the abomination—the creature that must, until so very recently, have been one of their own—and we rounded on Uldred.

Wynne was facing him down, yelling what I assumed must be the words of the Litany as twin, opposing waves of magical force met each other in the air. Everything tasted greasy and metallic, the magnitude of the power in the chamber causing sparks to dance on the stones. I ducked down, ran through the demon's great, towering legs, and stuck my blade into the nearest thing I could find that approximated the back of a knee. Blood spurted from the gash I'd torn. The creature roared, its concentration broken enough for it to reach down and claw at me and, I gathered, for whatever Wynne had been trying to do to work. The death holler of another of the abominations sounded, and I made out the shape of Alistair, blood-streaked shield sagging from his slack left arm, limping towards Uldred. Magical fire and ice, tempests and bolts of energy clashed and boomed all around us. It disorientated me, left me unsure of everything and lost on the teetering razor of fear. I darted out from under the monster and made for Alistair, skidding in behind him on the bloody floor as we pulled back to flank Uldred.

The mages' sustained violence was driving him against the wall and, with the last of his servile abominations lying in messy heaps on the flagstones, he had no other line of defence left. Unfortunately, as with all cornered animals, desperation only made him more determined.

We pushed, pressed with steel where the magi struck with magic; Leliana's well-aimed arrows and Alistair's bloody, weighted charges to my frenzied swings. The Uldred-abomination was weakening, but he could still pack a punch. Those great clawed hands swung and scythed… I ducked, rolled, stabbed—and wasn't fast enough. An explosion of searing, incandescent light filled my vision, and I thought yet another magical bolt had burst above me, until I felt the pain. It was in everything; every muscle and tendon I possessed, pressing in on me from all around, like bars of iron. I couldn't see, couldn't breathe… there was just a crackling surge of energy, like white fire, holding me at its core and trying to consume me, crush me until I was nothing but dust, floating in the static-sharp field of whatever magic this was.

I was aware of my feet scraping the floor as I was drawn up on my toes like a dancer, then up again, blades loose in my weakened grasp as the sheer strength of the agony impaled me upon it. My mouth was open but I couldn't scream, couldn't even draw breath. My skin crackled and everything tasted like hot leather, and then… then I couldn't see or taste anything at all. There was just a cold blackness that started to fill me, a numbing chill pooling in the places that felt crushed and ruined. I fought it, fought hard, but I couldn't win.

It was sheer luck that I lasted longer Uldred's spell did and—as whatever he'd done to me wore off—I hit the flagstones, winded and dizzy, my eyes burning with the flashes of light and my body swooping and twitching with the leftover echoes of pain.

I scrabbled for my weapons, clenched them in slick, shaking hands, and tried to suck breath into my screaming lungs. Magical flames seared the air above me, and Uldred howled, forced that little bit further backwards. We had the creature pinned at the far end of the chamber now and—as another burst of that eye-scraping light flashed, purple-toned and bruised with blue—I heard Wynne intoning the words of Litany again, shouting over the noise that echoed off the chamber's imposing walls. The Uldred-creature flung back its head and loosed a terrible roar, swiping with one massive hand at Alistair as he charged once more. He ducked, wove, and brought his sword around in a great slash, cutting a brutal swathe through the corrupted cloak of flesh that the abomination clung to. Its other fist came flying, catching him off-balance, but I was already running—or at least limping at speed—clutching close to myself the best piece of advice I'd ever heard on fighting.

_Stick them with your sword enough, and they go down._

Back in the warm, far-off days of my childhood, Mother had probably thought she was teaching me what I needed to know to guard my honour, and nothing more. Everything she showed me was about balance, poise, and cunning; the poetry of a well-placed knee in the groin and the wisdom of carrying a small, sharp knife in one's boot. It wasn't until I got to Ostagar—and listened so hard to everything that hard-bitten army sergeant had said—that I'd really started to handle blades forged for the grubby, bitter business of killing. My technique remained clumsy, but the steel sang to me. It called for an end to this, and that was all I was thinking of when I leapt.

The air seemed to part around me like wet silk. The stink of the creature, the unimaginable corruption and vileness of its mutated form, loomed bigger and bigger as I flung myself towards the broad bulk of its body. I drove my sword in somewhere at the top of its gut—did it even _have_ a gut, I wondered, or just the pretence of one?—and let my bodyweight hang from the blade, opening the creature up as my feet kicked for purchase against ragged, bloody flesh. My dagger carved another wound into its side and I shut my eyes against the blood and the flesh and Maker knew what else that poured out. Whatever had been keeping the abomination's flesh-cloak together, it was finally ruptured… or perhaps the demon just couldn't be bothered to maintain the act anymore.

What had once been Uldred keeled backwards with a long, drawn-out scream of anger, and bore me with it. White light burst around me, split by the hiss of arrows, and I knew Wynne, Leliana, and the other mages were still keeping up a ranged attack, no one prepared to let up until the creature was thoroughly dead and, for preference, in pieces.

It—I, or _we_—hit the stone floor with a jaw-cracking smash, sending me rolling free of what I fervently hoped was the corpse… and then, at last, it was over. Not that I realised it. There was still a deafening roar in my ears, still the echoes of all that blinding, crackling light flashing across my vision, leaving streaks of blue behind it, as disorientating as the moment of coming indoors on a bright summer's day. I knew I was still breathing, because every breath hurt, but that gave me something to focus on; the ebb and flow of tainted, bloody air, foul like offal and copper.

Slowly—so very, very slowly—the dust seemed to settle. I stared up at the great, vaulted stone dome of the Harrowing chamber, the floor hard and uncomfortable beneath me, and I was aware of time coming back to itself, snapping into place around me and the people I was with… people who I wanted to look at, wanted to be sure were all still standing, still all right. The mages, and the First Enchanter… we needed them. Needed them to be alive, unharmed….

With difficulty, I stumbled to my feet and turned in a clumsy circle, my legs water-weak, and the tip of my sword dragging on the stone floor. Wynne was leaning over the First Enchanter; the other magi were working on freeing their cohorts. There were injuries, perhaps even a couple of the shackled prisoners who were past helping. I couldn't tell. Leliana was staring at the mess on the flagstones, her lips moving in what I gathered to be a stream of prayer, though whether it was soundless or I was just still deaf, I didn't know.

I completed the circle I was turning in, the raw, burning breaths slowing as I saw Alistair. He'd pulled his helmet off, and blood was running down the side of his face from a great gash on one temple. He shook his head as he looked at me, as if trying to clear blurred vision, and came unsteadily towards me. I stared blearily at him, able to see his lips moving, but not hearing the words. Eventually, as he got closer, they collapsed in on me, and the world echoed as if I'd ducked up from under the weight of murky water.

"…think it would have been." Alistair frowned at me. "Are you all right?"

It was hard to formulate a reply. I could taste the words, but they were loose and unconnected, dancing around me and always just out of reach. I watched the blood trickling down the side of his head, and gradually grew aware of the furrows on his dirty, sweat-streaked face. He looked me up and down and, without taking his eyes from me, called out to Wynne.

She hurried over, though I could see she was in pain—had she been wounded?—and those quick, sharp blue eyes worked briskly over my frame. She nodded, put her hand on my shoulder, and spoke to me in a loud, clear voice, with the kind of exaggerated patience usually reserved for the very young, very old, or not especially sane.

"Where does it hurt most?"

I stared woozily at her. What a stupid question. Everything hurt. Still, I frowned, concentrated, and realised that not everything was well in the region of my ribs. I tried to raise my hand and point there because, for some reason, my tongue didn't work anymore. Also, lifting my arm made the odd-coloured lights burst in front of my eyes again, and turned everything a semi-transparent shade of blackish grey.

Wynne knew, though. I remember thinking how clever that was. She placed her palm on the outside of my bloodied leather armour, just at the spot that was causing so much trouble, and bowed her head.

"Hold her," she said, and I didn't know why.

Alistair dropped his sword, came round behind me and—just as I was about to protest—the pain started. I went rigid, then sagged like a wrung-out cloth, and he caught me when I fell back, kneeling on the bloody stones, bracing me with a knee in the back and his arms locked under my armpits, pinning my shoulders and stopping me either from shying away or fighting back.

Only the second time in my life I'd received magical healing, and the first time that I'd been awake for it. Somehow, I hadn't imagined it would hurt quite so much. It did, though. I felt every fibre of the muscle and every splinter of the bone knitting back together as Wynne's magic pulled my broken ribs back into shape, and healed the damage they'd caused in their breaking. I screamed. Screamed, swore and… as the light faded, breathed. Properly, which was a surprising relief.

"In ideal circumstances," Wynne said, removing her hand from my now slightly singed armour, "we would have some pain relief for that procedure. My apologies."

I'd slithered to the ground once Alistair had let go of me, and was eyeing the chamber for somewhere I could slink off to and throw up—not that there was anything in my stomach to make it worthwhile.

"S'fine. 'nk'you," I managed, trying to stand up again. "M'fine."

I made it to my feet on the second go, swaying gently, and blinked at the assembled mages, wishing I hadn't given them such a melodramatic display.

First Enchanter Irving had been helped to his feet, and was saying something rather grand about a debt that could never be repaid. I meant to listen. I meant to say something important about the templars, and… and about Connor… because, if Uldred had willingly given himself to a demon the way the boy had, then it seemed reasonable to me that Connor could turn into something as bloody awful as the pile of putrid flesh currently leaking all over the flagstones, and we should get back to Redcliffe as soon as possible.

It didn't quite work out like that, somehow.

"Whzzfftmnng," I said, shortly before the world turned dark, and I slithered to an extremely undignified rest on the ground.

* * *

_A/N: Fast and loose again! My apologies to Cullen fans. He has his own story waiting in the wings, but I haven't loaded any of it here yet, as I'm going to be slow on updates for a while. Last two chapters of FoD Vol.2 coming soon, and updates on other things, then Vol.3. Have been debating whether or not to change the titles of the volumes listed here to their subtitles (viz. The Bird that Fears the Cage / On Scorched Red Earth) to reflect the fact they do stand independently as well as part of a series. Not sure so, if you have opinions, shout now. ;-) _

_As ever, my thanks to everyone reading, reviewing, favouriting (if that's even a word) and so forth. There is more to come. Much, much more... mwahahaaa. _


	16. Chapter 16

_A/N: I'm back! An unexpected and rather unpleasant month offline. Short version: I crashed (stupid CFS, *grumble grumble grumble*), then my internet connection did. Ten days to fix it. How can one ISP's helpline physically transfer you to another company's second-line tech support? I don't know. Anyway, on with the updates. Apologies to people I owe emails to, and to those waiting for updates to FoD and other stories. I'm being abominably slow, but it will pick up. Poke me with sticks if you wish. It may help. ~A._

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**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

* * *

I came to in the templars' make-shift field hospital, with very little idea of how I'd got there. I started to sit up, gulped a bit, lay back down, and waited for the high vaulted ceiling somewhere above me to swim into focus. Torches burned in the sconces, and I was aware of movement, of voices… of Leliana, standing close by.

She glanced over at me and smiled. "Oh, good. You're awake."

She cast a final look at whatever was happening on the other side of the chamber, and came over to hunker down beside me. One lean, graceful hand rested briefly against my forehead, and the contact felt strange… almost invasive, though I knew it was motivated by concern. Those glass-shard eyes narrowed a little, and Leliana smiled softly.

"You had everyone a little worried for a moment there. You need to rest. Honestly, I think you and Alistair are as bad as each other…. here you are, don't try to sit up too fast…."

She helped me, and the threat of nausea subsided. I blinked, fingers groping at the edge of the coarse woollen blankets on which I lay.

"As bad as…?" I queried, confused and squinting.

"You need to take a deep breath," Leliana chided gently, her hand resting between my shoulder blades, "and realise that you can't do everything at once."

I didn't understand what she meant. I was too busy being angry with myself for… what? Fainting? Ugh, was that what had happened? My head pounded and my tongue tasted foul. Wynne's rough-and-ready healing magic, with all its incredible agonies, might have knitted my body back together, but it had done nothing for the pain, or the bruises. Across the chamber, my blurry vision yielded a group of mages, headed up by the First Enchanter, arguing animatedly with the Knight-Commander and a small knot of templars. Wynne was there, pitching right into the middle of the fight, and Alistair, too. He was partially unarmoured, and his shoulder appeared to have been redressed, a wad of bloody bandage clasped to his tattered shirt. He looked over to us, and mouthed 'help'.

I groaned, and staggered awkwardly to my feet. As I got closer, I realised what the argument was about. There were several strands to it, ranging from the question of whether the mages could be trusted after Uldred's rebellion—Maker only knew how far any of them had been corrupted, after all—to the total impossibility of anyone leaving the Tower to return with us to Redcliffe.

To hear Greagoir speak, it seemed as if the entire Circle should be placed in quarantine, and that outraged the magi. I could understand their anger, but I also saw the need for caution… not that I was going to be the one to voice it.

Wynne, all bare fury and brittle politeness bent to breaking, was jabbing a finger at the Knight-Commander's chest, demanding to know exactly what he thought gave him the right to judge… especially when he had been so quick to condemn them all to the mercy of the abominations in the first place.

I winced. Greagoir bristled, and the whole tangle of raised voices and wounded egos lurched back to the beginning of the argument.

"Ah, the other Warden," said a familiar, slightly nasal voice.

Looking to my right, I saw one of the mages without whose help we probably wouldn't have defeated Uldred. He'd cleaned up a bit, though the marks of the ordeal were still clear on him to anyone who knew how to look. He gave me a tight, thin smile.

"We owe you and your companions a great debt," he said, the smile widening cautiously to expose a narrow rank of yellow teeth.

He spoke just loud enough—and his voice was carrying enough—to cut through the barrage of chatter. With a sense of heated discomfort, I grew aware of the mages, the Knight-Commander, the templars… all turning to look at me.

"Senior Enchanter Salter is quite right," Irving said levelly, and his low, gravel-pocked tones held a tight measure of diplomatic nuance. I caught the way his gaze flicked to Greagoir, and sensed just how complex the relationship between the Circle and its watchdogs must be. He smiled at me. "And I see you are at least a little recovered, Warden. That is something."

They called me Warden. It still felt strange. I mumbled a thank you, not sure where to put myself among all these men in their fine robes and shiny plate. Alistair chuckled.

"Well, she is," he said, and I glanced up sharply as the words tailed off into a throat-clearing cough. "I mean, she… _we_… couldn't have… uh."

"We came here because we need help," I said wearily. "What assistance the Grey Wardens have given the Circle, or the templars, we gave freely… but now we must ask for something in return. The treaties we carry compel the Circle to aid us against a Blight—and that Blight _is _coming. Ostagar was only the beginning."

It was my voice, and yet it hardly seemed like it; husky and strained with fatigue, working around words that were unnatural and alien to me. They stayed so quiet as I spoke… so many still, silent faces, just watching me. I swallowed heavily, and went on:

"We are entitled to demand your aid, First Enchanter. We will not. We _ask_, just as we ask you to help save Arl Eamon's son. If we have learned nothing else here… gentlemen," I added, wetting my lower lip with a nervous tongue, "it is that things are not always simple. Uldred's rebellion did terrible things to this place—things you will be struggling to right for many years, I am sure—but it also showed what the magi can withstand. These men have faced abominations, and retained their minds, have they not?"

Greagoir scowled blackly at me. "Blood magic is not so simply defined as—"

"Blood magic had a hold in this tower before the rebellion," I snapped, and a small part of me, somewhere inside my head, was amazed at my insolence. "That much seems clear, Commander."

"Are you saying that the templars—"

"I am _saying_ that there will always be those who seek power by unscrupulous means, even if they think they're doing the right thing. Uldred's argument was based on winning greater freedoms for the Circle… don't you think that, by stifling them now, you'll add weight to that very cause?"

The man fumed, those great grey brows drawn into a colossal frown. I couldn't help myself tensing up; my body expected a backhanded slap, even though I knew it wouldn't come. That little grain of knowledge in itself was powerful. That I could say such things, look into the eyes of men like the Knight-Commander, and have them _listen_… it was exhilarating.

Either that, or the lack of food and sleep was cutting in.

_**~o~O~o~**_

I would like to say I made an incisive, stirring speech, that the Circle and the templars both leapt to action and we returned at once to Redcliffe. That wasn't the case. There was further argument, tussling over details and a great deal of haggling, like old women trying to get the best price on their market day lace. Eventually, Greagoir relented and—in what seemed to be a rare occurrence—agreed with Irving. They would both lend their support to the Grey Wardens, though the templars' involvement would be more tacit than the Circle's brazen solidarity.

There was politics at play, of course. Dozens of dancing skeins of it to follow, and it made my head hurt even worse. The Circle felt betrayed by Loghain's withdrawal at Ostagar, an injury compounded by Uldred trying to curry favour for him. They distrusted the new regent and, I suspected, would be only too happy to use a declaration of support for the Wardens as an opportunity to publicly humiliate the teyrn. Irving seemed to positively delight in the prospect.

Greagoir was altogether shyer. He rumbled about the need to send messengers to Denerim and clarify matters with the grand cleric… which nearly started another argument. Several of his men—and many of the mages—believed it to be Loghain's fault that the reinforcements from the capital had not arrived, bringing the Rite of Annulment with them. It sounded like paranoia to me, when the messenger Greagoir had sent could just as easily have fallen victim to darkspawn—or even Redcliffe's walking dead, if he'd taken the route along the cliffs—but there was no arguing with the vehemence of those who wanted to blame Loghain.

The Knight-Commander grew impatient. He asked if we were raising an army. He asked whether, if it came to it, the Grey Wardens would rebel against the throne, regardless of who was upon it. I didn't know how to answer him. I said we would stand against the Blight, and do whatever it took to see it ended.

That seemed to be enough for him. He nodded, and gruffly stated that—should such an army form—regardless of his order's official position, he would not hold to discipline any of his men who saw fit to join us.

After what felt like hours, things were finally settled. Irving would lead a deputation of senior enchanters back with us to Redcliffe. They would try to exorcise the demon from Connor—providing we were not already too late—and see if anything could be done to help the arl.

Naturally, three templars were also selected to join us… and no one needed to ask what _they_ were being sent for.

As the preparations for our leaving began, there was much talk of supplies, and of sending word to Kinloch's sister towers, in Orlais and in the north. I got the feeling the mages thought a war was coming… and quite possibly not the same one the rest of us were staring towards.

Still, it was no longer our place to argue. We had what we'd come for—what the treaty allowed us to compel—and I hoped that was enough.

A busy throng of activity followed all the talking, and it astounded me. Alistair took over once I was all gabbed out, relaying everything we knew of Connor's deal with the demon, and his condition. It elicited great interest from the enchanters, and what had begun as the promise to help save a life soon degenerated into detailed discussion of academic principles and precepts. Most of it went over my head but—while they were arguing amongst themselves over what treatise or paper said this or that about the nature of demonic possession, and whether so-and-so's theorem of such-and-such was an accurate measure of probable success—at least the boat was getting packed.

I sloped outside, back down to the little jetty, gladder than I ever thought I'd be to breathe in cold, muddy air and smell stockfish and lakewater sludge on the breeze. It was dark, the distant points of stars beginning to lance through the thickness of the night. The water lapped at the island's shore, and I listened to the creak of rope and wood, and the soft splashes of… things… turning lazily under the surface. Maybe the stories of seven-foot fish with razor-sharp teeth were true. After everything I'd seen, I doubted I'd have been surprised.

_**~o~O~o~**_

The return to Redcliffe passed in something of a haze. There was another boat, and the lulling rock of a wooden hull, and not even being pressed in amongst half a dozen portly human men (and Wynne, who'd insisted on coming too) in long silk and velvet robes—all smelling of musty fabric, tobacco smoke and sweat—could stop me from grabbing some much-needed sleep.

I didn't dream. It was the bare, deep darkness of total exhaustion and, when I woke, we were nearing the shore. My head was resting on Leliana's shoulder and, a little embarrassed, I pulled myself up, blinking rapidly.

"Huh?"

She smiled at me. "We're nearly there. And in good time."

I rubbed at the grit in my eyes and muttered something about hoping we weren't too late.

The village was tucked down for the night when we got there, but there were still enough people around to stare at us as we made our way back up to the castle. They had good reason: their flame-haired hero had returned, bringing with her a cavalcade of mages. There was whispering and pointing… and the smell of the pyres still clung to everything.

Torches burned along the route to the castle gates, and the forecourt was lit up. It was almost welcoming. Ser Perth greeted us; a small knot of his men were on guard here, and few traces of the carnage the place had seen remained visible.

Just like Leliana had said, I supposed. Built on blood, generation after generation, until it seeped into the rock itself, and no one remembered the names of the battles anymore.

"You have returned!" the knight exclaimed, as if it had begun to seem improbable. "This is wonderful. We'd started to think— well, you must go to the great hall at once."

"What about Connor?" Alistair asked. "Is he—?"

Ser Perth's clear, honest face was not given to dissembling. His expression tightened, and he shook his head.

"Your… friend, the, er… mage. She banned almost everyone from the chamber. The boy turned again, and— you should see for yourselves. We haven't been back in."

Alistair shot me a grim look. I said nothing. I'd known Morrigan would do what needed to be done, if the worst had happened. Yet it seemed so unfair… that we'd got through everything at the Circle Tower, only to return here and find we were too late.

We paced the dim stone halls with the phalanx of mages behind us. More torches lit up the damage done to the castle, and it was hard to stop myself looking for monsters in the shadows they cast, though at least the bodies had been moved.

When we reached the double doors that led into the great hall, they were shut and barred from within. Alistair strode up and thumped the wood with a clenched fist.

"Morrigan!"

Somewhere through the pounding heartbeats and the fuzzy nerves, it occurred to me that, if she _had_ done what I'd asked, he'd never forgive her. They'd hardly been comfortable allies to start with but, after this, I doubted I'd get them to travel together without open hostilities and bloodshed.

The doors graunched slowly open, revealing the immense figure of Sten, filling up the portal. I'd forgotten how big he was. We could _definitely_ have done with him at the tower. He gave no nod or smile of greeting; just the bare flicker of recognition in those startlingly violet eyes, which faded to mild distaste as he surveyed the mages and templars we'd brought with us.

Behind me, I heard one of the enchanters mutter some exclamation of surprise that ended in '…damned qunari, look!', and I winced.

"Good to see you, Sten," I managed, and it was; I drew a sense of relief, somehow, from the sheer bulk of his presence.

He grunted non-committally, and a familiar voice arced the length of the chamber.

"'Tis about time you returned! What took you so long?"

"Hm. Actually wasn't as easy as you might think," Alistair countered, as our odd band of saviours began to traipse into the great hall.

Morrigan scoffed. "Why does that not surprise me?"

She stood at the far end of the hall, on the small dais, hands on her hips and that ragged ensemble of leather, cloth, feathers and jewels shining with the orange-gold tongues of firelight that outlined her. Aside from Sten, there was no one else in the chamber, and a feeling of cool apprehension skittered down my back. Why did she need to hold us off here? What was so bad that we shouldn't see it? Those dark-painted lips tightened as Morrigan looked us over—taking in, I imagined, both the state we were in and the selection of companions we'd brought back—and I realised how tired she seemed.

"Where is Connor?" I asked tentatively. "And Lady Isolde? Bann Teagan… Jowan?"

"Jowan?" the First Enchanter echoed incredulously. "_Jowan_ is the blood mage you spoke of? Wh—"

I winced. Trying to outline Redcliffe's problems cogently and concisely before our arrival had not been an easy task.

"Well, yes… but—"

"He is gone," Morrigan said bluntly, folding her arms across her ample chest.

Ah. _That_ was why she'd come down here to meet us, then.

She took a few nonchalant paces down from the dais, and I was aware of the effect her swaying gait—and that artfully bolstered bosom—was having on the more mature members of the Circle. One of the senior enchanters coughed loudly.

"Gone?" Irving sounded displeased. "That boy is an apostate, a maleficar… had I known it was _he_ whom the arlessa hired, I…. Woman, do you not know how many he injured in his escape from the Tower?"

I tried not to notice the way those golden, cat-like eyes narrowed as Morrigan fully absorbed that particular form of address. Something steely and dark hung in the air as she cast a lingering glance over the company, and as they stared back at her. The soft clank of armour told me one of the templars accompanying us was shifting uneasily.

"This woman is clearly an apostate," he began, drawing breath presumably to declare the whole castle in need of immediate purging. "Who's to say she—"

Morrigan curled her lip. I suspected she'd enjoy playing with the toys we'd brought her, but the danger in the game was real, and we didn't have time for it.

"She is under the protection of the Grey Wardens," I blurted, "and without her we wouldn't even have been able to _get_ to the Circle Tower, so… she will be accorded some respect. Um. Sers."

A prickly, terse silence fell. I cleared my throat. Jowan was probably running for his life along the cliff path as we spoke. I didn't doubt that Morrigan had let him go the minute she knew we'd returned… if not sooner. Part of me blamed her for it, because blood magic was blood magic, and all prices had to be paid, but part of me—especially after all we'd seen at the Tower, and all the enchanters' endless talking, chewing over the politics of every tiny thing—could not. He'd seemed penitent, hadn't he? Spoken of mistakes, and a desire to right his wrongs… just like the blood mage _I'd_ let go had spoken of the yearning for change.

Maybe, I thought, it was the sin that was wrong, not the sinner. Yet, for a mage, whose actions were the physical manifestations of their will, could those two things ever be truly separated?

I fought down the urge to make a warding sign on the fingers of my left hand, and decided that every last damn one of them was more foreign that I'd ever thought possible.

"Where's Connor?" I asked again, dread rising from the fact she hadn't told me. "And the others? Did—"

Morrigan broke from staring at the mages, and addressed me coolly.

"He is upstairs, in his chamber. His mother and uncle remain at his side. The boy is… confined. He turned again not long after you left, but we were able to subdue him."

"Subdue?" I repeated hollowly, not liking the tone of her voice.

It was arch, as ever, but there was something cold and brittle in the way Morrigan spoke, as if she wished to distance herself from the words.

Sten exhaled, a grumble of disapproval from the side of the chamber.

"It would have been more efficient to kill the child, but the shrieking woman made it… complicated."

"Lady Is—?" I stopped. I didn't even need to ask. "Ah."

"My people," Sten observed, "would have dealt with it differently."

"I… I'm sure," I said, looking uncertainly at the firelight washing over that immense, bronze-hewn figure. "Then you didn't…?"

He shook his head, once. "The witch required we wait. I did not concur. We… compromised."

I looked between the two of them, curiosity battling with trepidation. What it must have been to watch Morrigan facing off to the qunari…!

"We would have performed the blood ritual at dawn," she said shortly. "It was the only way, and we could wait no longer. You do _know _you were gone for more than two days?"

"What?" Alistair frowned. "That's not…."

I thought of Niall and the whispering, sliding world of the Fade… and how lucky we'd been to get out.

Still, I wondered why Morrigan had waited. Had she wanted to give us every opportunity to spare the boy, or merely doubted her own chances for success?

_**~o~O~o~**_

There was barely room enough in the family accommodations for all of us. Mages, templars, guardsmen… we all piled up the stairs, following Morrigan. Sten had apparently organised a small number of Ser Perth's knights and Murdock's militia into a strategic force to clear out and hold the upper floors of the castle. There might still have been dark things lurking in its hidden corners but, slowly, everything was being brought back to order.

However, that didn't make what we found in Connor's room any less terrible.

It was a well-appointed chamber, small compared to the great rooms on the floors below, but far too big for me to think of as a bedroom. Bright, richly coloured rugs covered the floor, the plastered walls painted with a cheerful blue frieze. Shelves held finely made wooden toys—soldiers, horses, and even an ornately carved dragon, its eyes picked out with red glass beads—and a painted drum stood next to a stack of fine, leather-bound books. There was a carved wooden armoire, and a large bed hung with dark velvet drapes, beside which sat Lady Isolde and Bann Teagan. The bann started up as our motley brigade began to enter, and he looked white and strained.

"You've returned," he said, his voice thin and hushed, and his gaze immediately seeking Alistair. "Thank the Maker! But… what—?"

"It's a long story, Bann Teagan," Alistair said, brushing away the questions. "We've brought help from the Circle. They… well, they think Connor can still be saved."

Isolde let out a stifled sob, and buried her head in her hands, shoulders shaking convulsively. Teagan looked as if someone had physically drained him, the breath rushing out of his body in a tumble of relief and exhausted hope. He reached down, patted the arlessa absently, and nodded, obviously making an effort to draw himself up and address the mages.

"Th-thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Of course, anything you need… anything at all…."

Irving stepped forwards, introduced himself to the bann, and began to speak of moving the child downstairs, using the great hall for the ritual. Haste was key, making use of his weakened state… I'd heard enough of the voices of mages to last me a month.

A familiar doggy whine came from the end of the bed, and I saw Maethor spread across the coverlet, his massive paws dangling over the edge of the mattress. He raised his head, tail wagging frantically as he looked at me, great jaws cracked open into a tongue-lolling canine smile and wrinkled little ears pricked up, but he didn't move.

I couldn't help grinning. "Still on guard, are you?"

The mabari groaned, low in his chest, and cocked his head to the side. I stepped closer, hand already lifted to scratch his ears—Maker, but I'd missed him—and I got my first proper look at Connor.

He was… shrunken. Very, very small, and so pale. That would happen to a child who lost so much blood, I supposed. They'd broken his hands. Crushed, mangled, and bound in heavy swathes of bandages. Unusable… at least for now. The wounds on his head had been dressed, too, making it hard to see how serious they were, or how they'd been inflicted. Sten, I supposed, and I purposefully shook away the thoughts of the things they said he'd done in Lothering. I didn't want to think, didn't want to know… didn't want any part of anything to do with the bruised, bloodied little boy lying unconscious in that bed. Dark circles ringed his eyes, the thin purple-blue tracery of veins running across the swollen, shiny lids. His lips were dry, softly parted as shallow, wheezing breaths creaked too slowly between them. The mark of something—a cord, or belt, perhaps—ran across his neck, a narrow, livid line.

However awful it looked, I knew it was mercy. They could have killed him. They could, but they hadn't. They'd kept him weak, kept the demon locked within him… but it couldn't last forever. Connor was dying, and I didn't know if we had enough time to save him.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Things moved relatively quickly after that. Connor was bound and brought down to the great hall, where the fire was stoked up and an impromptu bed laid in the centre of the chamber. The mages worked fast, setting out all their books and potions and strange paraphernalia, and chasing out all those who were not essential to the ritual.

"But… but I could… help, or—" Alistair protested, as we were ushered unceremoniously out of the great hall, through a side door.

"We will call when it is done," Enchanter Salter said firmly, and I caught one last glimpse of his narrow, hawk-nosed face before the heavy oaken door closed.

He looked nervous. They all did.

"But… Morrigan's allowed to stay," Alistair complained, addressing the wood's knotted grain. "That's… not… oh, _damn_."

Despite everything, I couldn't help sniggering. At my heel, Maethor whined reproachfully and, as I glanced down, cocked his head and gave a small grumble.

"Apostate or not," I reminded Alistair, "she's still a mage. They're probably content to put principles aside if she's useful. The only thing you can do is… well, the thing I guess we're all hoping no one'll _have _to do."

I hadn't really meant to voice it; not that I could avoid thinking about it. Those three templars were a very obvious presence.

Alistair sagged visibly, and sighed. "True. But still…."

I knew what he meant. Teagan and Isolde had been allowed to stay, if for no other reason than that it would have proved impossible to drag the arlessa away from her son's side, but that hardly made the waiting easier on the rest of us.

The only one who seemed at ease was Sten. He just went to the far end of the corridor and took up position opposite the large double doors that formed the main entrance to the great hall. A few guttering torches cast snatches of light along the stones, flickers of orange and gold whispering over the broken statues and torn tapestries, dancing in and out of the shadows that painted that lonely figure. I was reminded of the immense stone statues that had watched over the Tevinter ruins at Ostagar; ancient heroes, or magisters, or… well, who knew. But, for all the world, Sten looked like one of those silent guardians, and I wasn't sure whether I found that comforting or unsettling.

One thing was certain, at least: we couldn't stand here staring at the door all night.

"Revered Mother Hannah is reblessing the chapel," Leliana said, and the way she seemed to materialise behind us made me jump. "I'm going down there now to see if she needs help… and to pray for that poor boy. You're welcome to come too, if you want."

Alistair blinked and, from the way a muscle leapt briefly in his jaw, I guessed he'd managed to bite down on something caustic. I hadn't forgotten his disparaging sarcasm for the Chantry at the Tower… and I was sure Leliana hadn't, either.

"Thank you," I said quickly, smiling at her. "Um. Maybe in a little while."

She nodded, giving us a look somewhere between tremulous pity and resigned sadness, and pressed her lips together. The torchlight glimmered on her flame-red hair, so much deeper and glossier than Shianni's had ever been, and that porcelain face seemed to harden for a moment.

"All right."

Leliana turned and walked purposefully off down the corridor, her stride lengthening out into the gait of a woman too tired or anxious to be truly relaxed but who could, at last, see the faint spark of hope on the horizon.

I wished I could think so positively.

We watched her go. I glanced at Alistair, who grimaced and then let out a long, weary breath. He shook his head.

"It's not that… I mean, I believe in the Maker well enough, but—"

He broke off, looking faintly embarrassed. I smiled, recognising the well-worn creases the Chantry had pressed into the boy he must have been. They ran deep indeed, to leave him so guilty and twisted up, even now.

The gentle, fleeting memory of flowers and sweet perfume filtered through my mind, like the light caress of a spring breeze, and I thought of the sisters who'd visited the alienage, with all their well-meaning compassion and condescension. There would be a time for prayer, I supposed… later, and probably in the still, dark hours before dawn.

Maethor butted his nose into the palm of my hand and leaned against my leg, his considerable weight pushing me off-balance.

"Hey… what?"

The mabari groaned talkatively, and nudged me again with that wrinkled snout. I looked over to the far end of the corridor, and saw the rank of wooden benches positioned beneath the high, narrow windows. Maethor wagged his tail, and I grinned.

"You're a bully, dog."

He whined and head-butted me playfully, hindquarters shaking with the vigorous to-and-fro of that stumpy appendage, and Alistair chuckled.

"He has a point. You need to rest… don't want you fl—"

"We _all_ need rest," I said briskly, not wanting any reference to that embarrassing episode in the Harrowing Chamber, "but… oh, all right! Don't shove."

I gave in, and plonked down with a certain amount of relief on the hard wood. Maethor gave me a look of great satisfaction and sat at my feet, positioned perfectly for ear and neck rubs. I let my hand work over his short, brindled coat, the hard muscles and pitted scars of a wardog at odds with the happy little groans gurgling out of his deep, barrel chest. He tipped his head back and gave me a gooey, upside-down stare, tongue lolling out and ears flying at half-mast. I laughed softly, almost forgetting for a moment where we were, everything that had happened in this place… and what would be beginning soon, behind those heavy doors.

_**~o~O~o~**_

I didn't know what to expect from the mages and their ritual. In truth, there wasn't all that much in the way of noise from the great hall… a few muffled voices, and what sounded like the intoned words of incantations or spells. Light played under the doors from time to time, and there was a definite feeling of strangeness to the atmosphere, but that was really all there was to designate the battle being played out for the life of a child.

Strange, really.

We sat on that wooden bench for the best part of four hours, Alistair and I. Maethor alternated between lying at my feet and clambering up to sit with us, head in my lap, when the draughts grew too cutting. The high ceilings and dank, dark stonework seemed to fold in around me, guttering torchlight shading patterns along the walls. Those high windows afforded a few glimpses of the sky: the rough textures of clouds drifting across a dim, moonless night. Everything had been stone in recent weeks, I realised. Permanent, indelible… grey, unforgiving, and etched with the stories of years. I almost missed the transient stopgaps of alienage houses; our cramped, dingy cottages and jerry-built tenements, where the smell of damp and dry rot was drowned out by the boghouses every time the wind came from the south.

I thought of the Fade then, and the dream that had pulled me into its heart, offering me sweet, comfortable lies which I would have given anything to cling to, and whose loss burned with an incredible intensity. Still, I wondered: had I ever thought of our house as cramped and dingy when I lived there?

A small frown pinched my brow, and my fingers wandered to the chain at my neck, seeking the bevelled edge of Nelaros' ring, and the grounding weight of the pendant I wore. I squeezed the ring between my thumb and forefinger, tight enough the feel its outline press into my flesh, and then let it drop. It knocked against the silver pendant with a soft, metallic _chink_, and I did the same thing twice more, letting that small sound fall into the air like the first drop of rain into a glass-smooth puddle as I stared at the wall opposite me.

I'd thought Alistair had dozed off; it surprised me when he cleared his throat and attempted to marshal words together in something approximating a question.

"Can I, uh, I mean… um… can I ask you something?"

"Hm?" I blinked, dragging myself out of the cobwebbed recesses of memories, and becoming vaguely aware that my backside had gone numb. "Oh. Mm-hm. 'Course."

The hand that been playing with my necklace dropped to prop across my knee (somewhere, Father's voice was telling me to sit up straight and not hunch like that) and I tried to pretend I'd been completely alert.

"Your, er… y'know," Alistair said, less than eloquently. "The, uh, the ring."

"Oh."

Realisation prodded me with a grubby finger, and I recalled that silly gesture I'd made in the house of the dwarven merchant down by the lake.

_You can have your wedding ring back, girlie._

Of course it was no more than scraps of gilding. What else had I expected the thing to be? If I kept fiddling with it, it'd probably tarnish and turn to brass anyway.

That… wasn't what Alistair meant, though. He was looking at me with a mix of tentative curiosity and intense solemnity, and frowning very slightly.

"Is it true what that dwarf— I mean, are you really… _were _you—"

"Married?" I supplemented.

He nodded, apparently absurdly relieved at not having to actually say the word. I wondered what was so ridiculous about the notion, and shook my head.

"No… no, I wasn't. I was, um, betrothed, but not married. He—" I stopped, staring down at the flagstones; my turn to clear my throat now, struggling with words I hadn't imagined it would be quite so hard to say. "He died."

"Oh," Alistair said, and the word barely scraped the air.

Part of me wanted to tell him the story… to tell him the truth. He deserved to know it, especially when he'd parted company with his own secrets, but I was reluctant. Alistair's royal blood was one thing; my admitting what I'd done that day at the arl's estate—and _why _it had been done, and why Nelaros had died and I had left my people behind, lost to the shattered remnants of their lives—was something else entirely.

I might have managed it, though, if he hadn't spoken again.

"I-I'm so sorry. That… that must have been awful."

I blinked. Had it? Yes, it had. The whole day, the whole bloody, filthy episode—but he didn't mean that. He didn't know. I made the mistake of looking at him then, and found a terrible, searing compassion in his face, yet there wasn't an ounce of pity. Those hazel eyes held regret, apology… respect.

I blinked more, and looked away again.

"'nk you," I mumbled. "It… well, it's not exactly— I mean, we didn't know each other. He was a good man, I think, but…."

I could almost hear Alistair's confused frown.

"I thought you said—"

"Arranged matches," I said curtly. "They're… traditional."

"Oh."

I risked another glance up at him. He was studying the far wall, nodding thoughtfully.

"I didn't know that."

I shrugged. "No reason you should."

Alistair winced, and I supposed that had probably sounded a little brusquer than I'd meant. Still, a grain of irritation flickered in me. Humans didn't know our traditions, our customs. They didn't give a damn, preferring to fit us to their stereotypes, their ugly, twisted ideas. Whores, tarts, and servants, that's all we were. Why should they understand anything… and why, I wondered, should I be annoyed at Alistair for not knowing what I expected him not to know?

His brow crinkled again, and he shot me an enquiring look.

"So, really? You just… marry someone you hardly know?"

I sighed. The grain of irritation became a wad, and it didn't go away, but I tried not to blame him for it.

"Tradition," I repeated carefully, because people always said you had to say things twice to a shem. "The elders arrange everything. There isn't much travel between alienages, so usually a broker gets paid… a dowry goes out, new blood comes in…. It works. And it's a big thing, a wedding. Celebrations, music… dancing. Good matches do happen," I added, not sure why my voice sounded so hollow. "A lot of the time."

"Right." Alistair nodded again. "I see."

It sounded like a diplomatic response. I arched an eyebrow.

"Is it so different for humans, then?"

He shrugged, and gave me a small, self-deprecating smile. "I suppose so. I can't really… um. Y'know. Chantry."

"Ah." I smiled. "Yes."

We fell silent for a little while, and watched a pale band of light play under the great hall's doors. It was impossible to know what was going on in there, but the air all along the corridor seemed to thicken, prickling with cold needles. I shivered.

"Wynne says they'll combine their power," Alistair volunteered, "send a group of mages into the Fade, and force the demon to let Connor go. Kill it, if they can. They'll be there now."

Our own experiences with that realm of shadows and dreams were far too close for comfort, and I knew I failed to hide my revulsion at the thought.

"Mm," he agreed. "Listen… about that."

"Hm?"

Maethor had gone to sleep on my foot; wriggling my toes was not keeping the numbness at bay.

"I didn't thank you. For… you know. If it hadn't been for you, I'd probably still—"

"It's all right," I said hastily. "It was—"

"No." Alistair corrected me, gently but irrefutably. "You were brave. Really… brave. Everything you did, in the Tower. You stood up for those people, and you… well… you kept us all together."

_Sod it, I'm blushing… I am, aren't I?_

I was. I stared doggedly at the flagstones, and the mabari hound currently occupying them, massive paws twitching in time to the running pace of whatever dream he was having.

"I'm sorry for the things I said to you," I murmured. "In the dream. About—"

"You got me out," Alistair countered. "That's what matters."

There was a small, hot silence, creaking with things nobody really wanted to say. When I looked at him, he was chewing the inside of his cheek, a frown of indecision knitting his brows together.

"Mine was like yours," I said, offering it as conciliation, or solidarity… or something. "My dream. Family."

"It was?" He looked surprised, then smiled tentatively. "Oh. That's… I mean…. D'you come from a big family?"

I shook my head. "Only child. Lots of cousins, though, always in and out. Extended… um. Thing."

_Because elves run in packs, like rodents_.

I pushed the thoughts away—not even proper human stereotypes, but the nasty, corroded dregs of them, twisted around in my mind and tarnished by the association of vulgar, horrible memories. It was what they all thought, though, to some extent. Huge families, crammed into tiny rooms, because we knew no restraint when it came to breeding.

Alistair's smile widened. "That sounds nice."

I balled up my stupid, blinkered prejudices and wadded them together with the memories of his make-believe sister and her beautiful, rosy-cheeked children. Hard to believe we could share wounds that ran so nearly parallel. At least I'd had something true for the demon to steal, though.

"It was," I said, and I tried to let it sound casual, like I didn't miss home so badly it hurt.

I don't know if he believed me. He let out a sigh, stretched his legs out and leaned back, letting his head rest against the cold stone wall, face tipped up towards the windows. The various cuts, bruises and gashes were either starting to heal or at least scab over, and I watched the dying threads of torchlight pick at the streaks of dirt and soot that ran across his skin. There would be time to clean up later, I supposed. We all needed to. We didn't need, really, to be sitting out here like a bunch of spare buckles, but I wasn't about to suggest leaving what felt so much like a post… as if, just by being here, keeping watch somehow, we were doing _something_.

"So," I said, because we'd started talking and now, when we stopped, the silence felt unwieldy and strange, "tell me about the Grey Wardens."

"Hm? Oh." Alistair snorted. "Yes… such as they are."

He heaved in a deep breath and stared up at that high, vaulted ceiling. When he exhaled, it was a long, bruised sigh.

"You never did get told any of the important stuff, did you? Just… in at the deep end."

I shrugged. "I'll learn. What do we, er, what do we do, though? I mean… there are other Wardens somewhere, right?"

Alistair scuffed the heel of his boot half-heartedly against the stones. "In Orlais, yes… and the Free Marches, probably. Not that I know how to actually contact them. The order's main base is in the Anderfels, and that's more than a thousand miles away."

Maethor rolled over, and I looked down at the broad expanse of his belly.

"Those Orlesian reinforcements aren't coming, are they?"

"Nope."

I bit the inside of my lip, and thought wistfully of things like clean water and tooth powder, and a world where we weren't completely on our own.

"I'd imagine," Alistair added dryly, "that Loghain has seen to that."

I nodded, glumly recalling that torchlit war council back at Ostagar, when my wide eyes had drunk in the arguments between Cailan and the teyrn.

_How fortunate that Maric did not live to see his son ready to hand Ferelden over to those who enslaved us for a century!_

Frightening, really, how far prejudice could blind a person… and more so when its bitter vine had grown from the seed of experience. I should learn from that, I supposed.

"If he doesn't believe the Blight is real," I said slowly, weighing the words and the implications they carried, "and he doesn't trust the Grey Wardens, then what Greagoir said, about rebelling against the throne… we could end up having to—"

"Yes."

"Oh." I frowned. "But—"

Alistair wrinkled his nose. "There _are_ those in the Landsmeet who'd listen, but not just to us. I guess our best bet is to try and use the treaties. We have the Circle behind us, and that's something…. If the dwarves will accept the Blight's a genuine threat, their word will mean just as much as any men they can provide. The Landsmeet would _have_ to listen, and Loghain would have no choice but to— well. That's a lot of maybe, isn't it?"

I glanced sidelong at him, watching the shifting calculations of possibilities and improbabilities play over his face as he frowned in thoughtful apprehension.

"Maybe we could find a way to get word north," I suggested. "To the Marches, or… I don't know. There's really no base or anything, here in Ferelden? Nothing?"

Alistair shrugged. "Duncan said our numbers were small. There's the compound in Denerim, but it's right in the middle of the palace district, so I expect Loghain'll already have control of that." He let out a long, low breath, and stared mournfully at the far wall. "Nope. Aside from you and me, they're all gone. Everything… every_one_."

That familiar dark note of grief lurked in his voice, and I knew I shouldn't let him head back down that murky path.

"The order can be rebuilt, though," I said, squeezing all the brittle optimism I could muster into the words. "We were forced out before and came back. Maybe—"

"_Maybe_." Alistair's tone was sardonic, but it paled to weary disillusionment as he shook his head. "I don't know. Perhaps. But… eventually, we'd have to use the Joining to make more Grey Wardens, right? I don't know how to do that, just that it involves lyrium and some other magic, and it's really difficult to prepare. Beyond that…."

"We could ask Irving," I offered. "When they're… done."

"Hmm."

A beat of uncomfortable silence signalled the fact that neither of us wanted to dwell on what the next few hours might hold. Through those high, narrow windows, with their neatly faced lintels and smooth, stone sills, the night sky was beginning to fade into the musty blur of pre-dawn. Somewhere, the first few birds were warming up, grating out the rusted chirrups of song that would eventually rise to greet the sun.

At my feet, Maethor woke up. It was an elegant, fluid transition from sleep to full alert. He rolled over, ears partially inside-out and twitching, their pink inners focused on some movement within the great hall, eyes fixed on the door. I looked, but saw nothing… heard nothing.

"D'you think…?"

Alistair leaned forwards, and I suspected we were both holding our breath for a second. "Don't know. No idea how long it takes to…."

"Mm."

Whatever had woken the mabari, nothing seemed to come of it. Maethor groaned a bit, heaved himself up, and padded around in a circle on the flagstones before flopping back down and laying his head on his paws.

"Still," Alistair said thoughtfully, "for what it's worth… given the circumstances, I, er, I'm grateful that you're here. You know, instead of… some other Grey Warden. Um."

Nonplussed, I shot him a curious look. "Oh?"

He grimaced. "All right, look, that sounded better in my head. What I mean is that things could have been so much worse. If… if you weren't here. Or if you weren't _you_. Uh, should I stop talking now?"

I smiled, bigger and broader than I had in a long while… until I remembered about the new gap in my teeth, and tried to convert it to a more demure, lips-closed sort of smirk. I shook my head incredulously.

"No. I'm glad we're both us, as well," I said, which got a grin. "We're in this together, right?"

"Right." Alistair seemed relieved, though a hint of something else touched his face as he looked at me. I couldn't quite make out what it was: sadness, or trepidation? He cleared his throat. "We, um… we should talk more about the Wardens, too. I know you missed out on a lot, and there are things I guess I should try to—"

He didn't get a chance to say whatever it was he'd planned to. Movement echoed from within the great hall, and the heavy oak door opened.

As one, the three of us started up, Maethor quivering to attention, four-square, Alistair wincing at the pull in his wounded shoulder, and me wobbling a bit when I realised my right leg had gone to sleep and didn't want to hold my weight.

Bann Teagan emerged from the hall, one hand on the doorframe, his face pale and rimed with fatigue. His clothes were rumpled—was that blood on his jerkin?—and his eyes heavy. He nodded to us in acknowledgement and, when he spoke, his voice was a dry, distant shell.

"It is over."

The breath caught in my throat; I was afraid to ask. The bann took a step forwards, like a man lurching to freedom after years imprisoned.

"A success," he said softly, as if he almost didn't believe it himself. "Connor remembers nothing, but he is his old self. He is free."

There was a yelp of joy—I think it came from me—and there were shell-shocked, delighted smiles. Teagan reached out and grabbed a fistful of Alistair's shirt, half a triumphant clap on the back and half the rough hug he might once have given to a small boy. Maethor barked happily and wagged his back end so hard he almost spun in circles.

Above our heads, those narrow little windows began to let in the first tender fingers of a cold, pale dawn. Weak sunlight lanced through the greyish gloom, and struck dimly against the stone.

* * *

_Woo! Finally got around to posting. Currently running a few chapters ahead on my blog, but __should be caught up here in a little while. Thanks and appreciation, as ever, to those reading, reviewing and following Meri's journey. You perk me up no end. ;)_


	17. Chapter 17

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

* * *

Endings are rarely truly endings. Despite the symbolism of the dawn, there was no line drawn under the events of the night, no moment where we knew it was really finished.

In the great hall, the mages were all seated or standing, propped like empty pitchers, looking exhausted and worn through. Connor, wrapped in a blanket, cried for his mother in the small, thin voice of a frightened child, and Isolde sat with him in the centre of the floor, holding her son tightly to her and unable to explain to him why she was sobbing, too.

The fire had burned down low in the hearth. Morrigan stood beside it, tight-lipped and outlined in the shadows of the flames. She looked at us—at me—across the expanse of the room, and I couldn't make out the meaning in her face.

The boy was taken back to his chamber, weak and afraid, confused by the strange people crowded in around him, and not understanding the pain he found himself in. He remembered nothing, it seemed. Wynne and two of the other mages went with the arlessa and her maid—Valena, the blacksmith's girl, who'd showed surprising loyalty, I thought, by returning from the village the moment the castle was safe to be with her mistress. I didn't dare imagine the gossip that must be searing through the place by now.

There was talk of magical healing and protective wards to be placed upon the child, at least until he was well enough to travel. Kinloch Hold might still be in turmoil, but Irving was apparently of a mind to see Connor sent to Cumberland, or some other far-off, safe place, as soon as possible. Bann Teagan looked solemn and reluctant when it was mentioned—discussed in whispers, far from Lady Isolde's hearing—and muttered that it would probably be for the best.

"Should Eamon recover," he said, his voice still sounding pale and hollow, "he will scarcely believe this. His son, a mage… and responsible for so much devastation…."

"It wasn't Connor's fault," Alistair pointed out. "He only wanted to help his father. Speaking of which, First Enchanter…?"

Irving nodded wearily, and agreed the arl's condition should be assessed. The conversation turned to what had already been tried—talk of highly paid healers and exotic potions from foreign merchants—and it was agreed that, once Connor was settled, Wynne and the others best versed in the healing arts would examine Eamon.

I excused myself and slipped down to the chapel, leaving the strangely calm chatter behind me, and grateful for the chance to do so. As the tension splintered away from the hall, stagnant relief pooling in the dry spaces it left, I'd spotted Morrigan deep in discussion with Enchanter Salter, and I didn't know why I found that so unsettling. I did, though… even more so than watching Alistair slot so easily into place against the fabric of the castle's life.

Maethor had looked imploringly at me when they carried Connor upstairs, and I'd nodded my permission for him to follow. I hoped having that great hairy brute to keep him company helped the boy feel a little better, and I wondered, as I made my way down the ravaged hallways, how many generations of fine pedigree and faultless breeding had been wiped out in the arl's kennels.

Elven culture lacked the same deep bond with the mabari that human nobility had forged, but we were still Fereldan, and we knew the value of those dogs, both in coin and in heart. The thought of dead hounds piled on the floors of the kennels chilled and revolted me, and I was still thinking about it when I entered the chapel.

It was a peaceful space, all dark wood and the smell of beeswax polish and dust—though tinged a little with smoke and the heavy overlay of pine incense, presumably burned as part of the reblessing. There were more people here than I'd expected; a few familiar faces from the village, along with Mother Hannah and two of the lay sisters. I supposed the priest who normally had control here was numbered among the dead, like so many others.

At the far end of the chapel stood a marble statue of Andraste. The carving seemed finer than any I'd seen before—of Orlesian make, perhaps. Either way, it looked real enough that the prophet might suddenly turn and blink her eyes, or as if that full-lipped mouth, slightly parted, might suddenly open in song so pure and wonderful as to turn the Maker's gaze onto this very spot. She was beautiful, of course. Cowled and demure, and perfect in blameless white stone.

The mumble of voices, shapeless strands of prayer and busy organisation, faded a little. I slid into one of the pews at the back, awkwardly bent my head over clasped and folded hands and, closing my eyes, searched in the darkness for the small, shining beacons of hope or understanding. I didn't know what it was I was praying for—if it was really prayer at all, that stream of silent need, aching to be filled with certainty—but I felt a little stronger afterwards. Strong enough to be thankful, and to give thanks for what had been saved or, at least, was not yet lost.

I half-expected Leliana to be standing behind me when I rose, smiling that inward smile of faithful acknowledgement she had, but instead I found her at the front of the chapel, helping Mother Hannah order a shelf full of books. They were great, illuminated tomes, full of history and the tales of ages, by the look of them. I doubted I'd be any more capable of reading them than I was those damn treaties… not that it mattered.

"Oh!" Leliana's mouth bowed in concern. "You are— Is it finished?"

I nodded. "Yes. Connor's all right. They did it."

"Oh, thank the Maker!"

She clasped her hands in front of her mouth, and I almost thought she'd drop to her knees in prayer right then. Mother Hannah let out a sigh of relief and bowed her head.

"I confess," she said, looking at me with a slight darkness in her eyes, "I did not think such a plan could succeed. The boy is truly… well?"

"He will be, I think," I answered, and hoped it was truthful.

I wondered about that, though. Connor would be taken to a tower, and raised a mage, and he would one day face the Harrowing. Could a boy who'd willingly given himself to a demon once before ever be completely safe from their touch? It wasn't my place to judge, I supposed. For all I knew, Connor's experiences might make him stronger. He had survived, hadn't he? And the mages might have learned something from his case, some way of guarding against the dark horrors that could lurk within the mind, tempting and corrupting.

"Then there is cause for celebration," Mother Hannah said, the edges of her mouth curling slightly. "Maker knows this place has seen enough death and despair. Something good has come at last, and we shall mark that."

I smiled uneasily, and made noises about needing to get back to Bann Teagan.

Redcliffe could have its celebrations but—as long as Arl Eamon remained ill—we still had no voice, no great benefactor. There were the treaties, and the weight of the Circle behind us, but I wasn't convinced it counted for much. With no way of knowing how fast the horde was moving, or how rapidly the Blight could engulf the land, our next course of action hardly seemed clear.

Part of me wanted to think no further than a wash, some sleep, and a set of clean smallclothes, but too much hung over us to be forgotten.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Gradually, the castle was coming back to life. Those of the servants who'd escaped the carnage—and a few survivors from the village, probably motivated as much by curiosity as any sense of duty—had begun to get to work on the clean up, and the dark atmosphere of the place was beginning to fracture.

Bann Teagan played the hospitable host. While the mages went upstairs to examine the arl, we were offered hot water, relatively fresh clothes, and whatever ends of tough bread and salt pork the kitchen could yield. Alistair vacillated for a few moments, watching the bright flags of silken robes depart for the stairway to the upper floor, but relented. Eamon was, after all, hardly likely to wake just yet.

Alienage life had never equipped me with the expectations of privacy but, even so, it felt odd to strip down to my underthings in a small, dim scullery off the day kitchen and try to wash the dried blood, soot, dirt and Maker knew what else away. Leliana helped me, and it was the most naked I'd ever been in front of a human. Six bowls of water came up grey and scummy before we were done but, eventually, I started to feel clean. She tutted when she saw the scars I carried from Ostagar… though they were really nothing at all, just the occasional small dimples that Flemeth's magic had left behind. There was one on my side, too—newer and redder, the skin tight and shiny—where Wynne had healed me at the Tower.

"Does it hurt?" Leliana asked, soft fingers squeezing the rough washcloth over my back.

I shook my head, arms crossed defensively over my breasts. "Nn-nn."

Warm water slipped down my spine, making everything else feel cold in comparison. The shabby, greyed broadcloth of my smallclothes, half-peeled down, seemed baggier on my hips than when I'd left home.

"You know," Leliana remarked, rinsing the cloth, "you have such a nice figure. I wish my waist was so slim."

"Er…." I blinked. "Thank you?"

It hadn't really occurred to me that elven and human women might compare themselves in that way before. My only awareness had been of how much I lacked in comparison to Leliana—and, indeed, Morrigan—and I hadn't thought for a moment that a human woman could envy my slender frame. I supposed I was too used to the way the city guards had looked at us back home—that lechery born half from distaste—and growled ugly promises of showing us skinny wenches what 'real men' were.

She chuckled, a pleasing, musical sound, and rubbed my shoulders dry with a clean cloth.

Funny, I thought. Our races were similar enough, sure, but I'd always known elves characterise the shems by their bodies as if it was a failing. We talked of their slowness, their fat, flabby, lumpy forms—true of most of the merchants in the market square, but not all humans, admittedly—and we made fun of their palpable physicality… all that hair, on their bodies and on their faces, and the sweating, of which they seemed to do so much more than we did. We made them grotesque, parodies of creatures whose disdain could not hurt us… and I hadn't realised before how wildly uneven those perceptions were. Either that, or I'd been so long amongst shems now that I'd stopped noticing things.

Maybe it was a little bit of both.

_**~o~O~o~**_

Food, a wash, and a change of clothes certainly helped, but there was a meeting with Bann Teagan in the arl's privy chamber standing between us and any possibility of rest.

We reassembled and traipsed in. Sten was already there; he'd been investigating the armoury and, with the combined permission of Bann Teagan and the effusive helpfulness of an ever-grateful Owen—thrilled to the marrow to have his daughter back—had secured new kit for all of us. We'd need to be properly fitted, but after the stained and beaten leathers that had been falling off me since Lothering, not to mention the leaky, blister-chafing boots, nothing was too much trouble if it meant dry feet and something reliably solid between me and the next sword-point coming at my ribs. And there would, I felt sure, be more of _those_ in my future.

Still, I knew something was off when I saw Lady Isolde, Wynne, Irving, and two more enchanters all crammed into the chamber as well. It wasn't a large room; the grey stone walls were neatly faced and hung with tapestries that depicted hunting scenes, and a large rectangular table dominated the space. The remains of a few broken chairs had been cleared away, and a fire lit in the comparatively small hearth. It threw a warm, deceptively cosy light over the gathering… and I noticed a large map, spread across the table.

"Wardens." Teagan inclined his head and, though he addressed both of us, he was looking at Alistair. "I'm glad you're all here."

The clammy weight of apprehension pulled at me as I glanced at the row of solemn faces.

"Arl Eamon?" Alistair asked hoarsely. "Is he—?"

The First Enchanter cleared his throat. "The poison that was administered was complex. We believe blood magic created it. Had Jowan not… escaped," he added pointedly, avoiding looking at Morrigan, "we might have been able to learn more, but it is of little matter. The demon—in order to gain control of Connor—did spare the arl's life, and halt the poison's corruption."

"Then he'll live?"

Irving gave Alistair a guarded, mournful look. "It is not so simple."

"But—"

"_Halted_ the corruption," the mage repeated, that low, grating voice drawing out around the words. "Not cured. As of now, Eamon's spirit wanders far from his flesh, held in the Fade."

I glanced at Alistair, fully expecting the tightening of his jaw, the squaring of his shoulders… the petulance in his tone.

"Then we'll enter the Fade, or the mages can do it, and we'll—"

"It's not possible, Alistair," Bann Teagan said gently. "Eamon's body is too weak. First Enchanter Irving believes that magic can sustain him—perhaps heal him, at least a little—but we cannot wake him."

"Then… he's going to die?"

The silence that swallowed the room was answer enough for everyone. Against the quiet, the arlessa's voice came as a soft murmur, a whisper between pale, dry lips.

"There… there may be something that can save him."

I'd thought of the woman as a faded rose before, and now I did so again, seeing all her doubts and fears furled around the grain of faith to which she so desperately clung. It was there, burning in those dark eyes: she _had _to believe, because giving up meant losing everything.

She reminded me, for a moment, of the white marble Andraste in the castle's chapel, and then my stomach lurched with the cold pang of realisation.

"Wait… the Urn of Sacred Ashes? That the knights were sent to find?"

Behind me, Morrigan scoffed disparagingly. "Only a fool would pin their hopes on a legend. Who truly believes that the bones of—"

"Lady Isolde," Alistair said quickly, and a little too loudly, in his effort to cut across the witch. "Forgive me, but… if you're suggesting we try to find the Urn… I mean, it may be no more than a legend."

Not to mention, I thought, we had the darkspawn to contend with. The horde was hardly likely to wait patiently for us to finish chasing stories. I wet my lower lip tentatively, watching the arlessa's expression harden. She was evidently a woman used to getting her own way… and it surprised me to see Bann Teagan shake his head wearily, fingers swiping across his brow as if he could physically push away his less comfortable thoughts.

"I'll admit, Alistair, I agree… but Isolde and I have been discussing this, and it is not mere grasping at straws. Eamon had been funding the research of a scholar—this… Brother Genitivi—who was studying the inscriptions on Andraste's Birth Rock. He claimed to have proof the Ashes were in Ferelden. If that is true—"

"_If _it is true," Morrigan remarked sharply.

I ignored her, and glanced at the First Enchanter. He returned my gaze levelly, inclining his head a fraction.

"We believe the relic is real enough," he said, his voice cutting through the thickening atmosphere. "The Tower's library holds… _held_ many tomes of history and lore, and there is indeed a reputation of great power attached to the Urn."

I couldn't help feeling that we'd been ambushed somehow, and I was very aware of the weight of so many gazes upon me as I cleared my throat.

"Yet the knights couldn't find this scholar," I said doubtfully. "If he's missing, then—"

"Then someone as formidable as you and your companions should be able to find him," the arlessa countered, and the hair on the back of my neck rose up like hackles.

If it hadn't been for the rough edges gained through her recent ordeal, I swore I'd have been able to taste the sugar in her voice.

She smiled at me then. Actually smiled. It was a dry, rather forced expression, creased and careworn and threaded through with that desperate, hungry hopefulness that made me feel so terribly empty.

"Please… you know the Grey Wardens will need my husband in what is to come. Find Genitivi, and he will lead you to the Urn."

I shot Alistair a sidelong glance, hoping that he'd have some argument, some reason against abandoning our central purpose to pursue what might be no more than a cloud-chase, but I could see the indecision racking him. He swallowed heavily, frowning. I sighed, and looked to Bann Teagan.

"Can't you speak for us? In Arl Eamon's stead, or… or do we even _need_ to—"

Teagan shook his head, and looked slightly chagrined. "I… have already made myself somewhat unpopular with Loghain's allies. I spoke out after his return from Ostagar, before I knew Eamon was even ill, and I fear I did more harm than good. Besides, my influence is but a fraction of my brother's." He smiled grimly. "I fear any attempt at intercession I might make with the Bannorn would do more harm than good."

I bit my tongue, trying to curb the urge to say something I'd probably regret.

The room turned quiet, the ghosts of sheathed arguments roiling in the spots of silence. The fire crackled to itself, and I stared glumly at the warm light dancing on the flagstones. On the wall opposite, one of the tapestries—which had, for the most part, escaped damage over the past few days—showed a white stag being set upon by two mabaris, while a hunter rained arrows from atop a small hill. The rest of the scene was dark, thick vegetation, the twisted grasp of trees binding the image in intricate weaves of thread, while the stag shone out, bright and pure against the bloodshed. It didn't seem to be expressing any pain; no open mouth, no rolling eyes. Just rearing up on its hind legs, as if it could stretch away from the attack, and offer itself up to the heavens.

Leliana broke the silence, her voice the quiet, gentle mirror to Isolde's; a softer bloom, more used to coercing by kindness than coarse flattery and demands.

"If it is possible to save a life by this task, it is worth trying, no? And you do need all the allies you can find… speaking of which, you still have treaties to deliver, I believe. If we are travelling to accomplish that, then perhaps finding this man will not be so far out of our way?"

Morrigan snorted eloquently, but said nothing. Sten's silence was almost deafening, though he hadn't moved from his ramrod-straight position by the table, and he was still staring fixedly at the far wall, as if he was nothing more than a sentry on guard.

I took a deep breath, not liking to admit my annoyance at Leliana's reasoning. One life, yes… against how many that might be lost in the meantime? And yet, I knew I couldn't argue. My reluctance to take the fastest, bluntest route with Connor had sealed this bargain; if I hadn't stood for killing the child, and had gambled so much on our journey to the Tower, I could hardly refuse to take the chance at securing Eamon's recovery—and his support—through this.

"Where would we start looking for the scholar?" I asked, avoiding the arlessa's eye. "Because our intention was to begin heading to Orzammar, and—"

She leapt on the first hint of my acquiescence like a dog on a fresh pound of offal.

"Then you will seek out the Brother? The Maker will guide you to him—I know it! His home is in Denerim, and all his research was there… you will find some clue, I am certain. I have gone through all of Eamon's papers, and I have here—"

I heard less than half of what she said, the absolute impossibility of the plan crashing in around me like falling rubble. I opened my mouth, but Alistair got there first.

"What? No, no… we can't just walk into Denerim!"

"Outlaws," I added helpfully, amazed at the naivety of the woman's mind. Had she no notion of what this would entail?

Besides, I couldn't go back… not there. Could I?

"Right." Alistair nodded. "Loghain'd love that, I bet. The minute we—"

"If he found you," Bann Teagan said dryly. He shrugged. "A little subtlety may be necessary… but I do not see how else we can proceed."

It might have been the fatigue, the frustration—perhaps even the proximity of so many thick-headed shems who I was sure didn't understand what they were asking—but I wanted to rant and rail then, to swear and scream at them all. I felt betrayed, used… ambushed, indeed.

I just exhaled a long, resigned breath, and nodded.

It was not the end of the discussion, but it was the moment at which I knew I'd lost the battle.

Still, whatever fate held in store for Arl Eamon, Redcliffe was standing solidly behind us. The temporary leadership of Bann Teagan—and everything we'd done for the village—secured that. We were to be fully equipped, given all the supplies we could carry and, while we were attempting to track down this Brother Genitivi, Teagan would be mustering the forces of the entire arling, and those of Rainesfere, under Eamon's banner.

Politics, it seemed, still needed the brute weight of force behind it.

We talked over every detail of things until my head felt as if it would burst. The map in the arl's privy chamber was fully unrolled and used to outline what broad plans we might build upon; I'd never seen a thing like it before. Squinting down at the spidery patchwork of lines and colours on the parchment before me, none of it made sense, or seemed to equate remotely to real things. Mountains were simple, jagged lines, and Redcliffe a stylised turret above a red mound, inked at the centre of a nest of swirling lines.

Jewel-like bursts of blue and green criss-crossed the map—lakes, rivers and plains—with roads and highways marked out in black, and towns and cities daubed like fingerprints upon the land.

I struggled to understand it, to envisage the distances involved or the reality of the terrain. Alistair leaned over my shoulder, forefinger sketching out broad sweeps across the country that, once, I'd thought was big enough to be the whole world. He and Teagan outlined timescales, reasonable schedules for journeys, and possible routes that would keep us both swift and safe. Occasionally, one or the other of them looked at me… as if I might actually offer some kind of confirmation.

I just nodded, let myself be swept along with it, and before I really understood it all, it was settled. We would head north to Denerim, striking northeast, skirting the borders of the Hinterlands and the Southron Hills to avoid the main roads and, if possible, getting word to some of the Dalish clans. I nearly laughed aloud at that. 'Find the Dalish', they said, like it wasn't a total impossibility in its own right.

Back home, it was almost a euphemism. Sometimes, it was. Wives, when their husbands were out late drinking, would say to their friends 'he's off to find the Dalish, and no bread left for supper', or some such bitter thing. When boys really did run away, refusing to believe the alienage was all there was to life, their families spoke of it with mixed embarrassment and anger… and there was always a right leathering in store for the lads who came sloping back days later, hungry, cold, and ashamed.

Here, though, no trace of irony. No permitting ourselves to believe it was impossible, I supposed… because what choice did we have but to try?

So, I kept my mouth shut, stared at the map, and tried to imagine myself walking along all those little lines. A tiny, paper me heading westwards along the coast road, the way Alistair was talking about, and making for some mountainous pass.

It didn't feel real. None of it did… and that was probably a good thing. A great deal more can be accomplished when it feels as if it's happening in a dream.

_**~o~O~o~**_

And so, it was settled. The remainder of the day was to be given over to resting, get ourselves outfitted and properly supplied for what lay ahead and then, with luck, we would leave in the morning.

There was to be another addition to our number, too: Wynne surprised me by declaring, right there in the privy chamber, that she wished to accompany us. She made a rather grand speech to the First Enchanter—a speech, I suspected, that was designed more for everyone else's benefit than Irving's—and spoke about the importance of what the Grey Wardens were tasked to do, and how stopping the Blight must unite us all. There was a certain smugness in her face when Irving gave her official permission to leave the Circle, and she shot me a look that glittered with quiet knowing.

I said we would be honoured to have her, and that the Grey Wardens—all two of us—were pleased to consider her an ally. Morrigan scowled darkly and muttered something about preachy schoolmarms, but didn't press the issue.

Eventually, the meeting splintered up, and we drifted our separate ways; the mages to rest, before they returned to the Tower and their own rebuilding efforts, Isolde to her son's bedside, and Teagan to the great hall, where he apologetically declared that business awaited him.

After so long on my feet, lurching from fight to fight and trying to stay constantly alert, winding down to rest felt strange. It wasn't easy to do—particularly in the castle, where there was still so much evidence of discord, and the uncomfortable reality of watching elven servants scrubbing blood off the floors.

There was more magical healing, too; properly done this time, so it didn't hurt so much, and designed to take away the lingering stiffness and throbbing, to guard against infection and strengthen bodies already battered. I was nervous, so I watched Alistair go first, wounded shoulder stripped bare and bathed in pulsing white light. The mages' hands glowed as they moved over him, and the air smelled of hot leather.

It wasn't as bad as I expected.

Once that was all over, rest was welcome… and by the time the day had worn itself away, with evening drawing in over the lake, even those of us who'd protested we couldn't possibly sleep had dozed through a good few hours.

I was in the day kitchen when Alistair came down, sprawled on a wooden chair, legs stretched out before me in front of the fire. Warm, sleepy… and enjoying my new boots, which actually fitted. I had new breeches and a clean shirt, too, plus studded leathers—currently sitting with my new pack—that, while still originally made for a human, Owen had cut down and judiciously splinted. Almost as good a fit as custom-made gear, he'd said, before sighing wistfully about the things he could do for us if he only had the time.

He'd done wonders, considering. Sten now had armour that properly covered at least two-thirds of him, instead of ramshackle odds and ends just tied on, and Owen had reworked several pieces of mail for Alistair that blended protection with wearability. As we'd crowded into the hazy heat of the forge, I'd been in a good enough mood to tease him about templar plate and purple tunics, and he'd pulled a face at me and said at least _he_ didn't have to everything adjusted because he was a shrimp. I kicked him.

Now, though, without all the buckles and the padding, and with that look on his face that told me he'd been upstairs again, sitting beside Arl Eamon's bed, Alistair didn't seem quite as well-rested.

He glanced around the kitchen, taking in the couple of remaining servants—Alen and Rhiannon, as they'd reluctantly told me, before going back to their duties and completely shutting me out—and gave me a brief smile.

"Bann Teagan thinks it would be a good idea if we show our faces in the village tonight. They're… celebrating. Fancy a pint?"

I nodded. "Wouldn't say no."

"Come on, then."

I stretched luxuriously, groaned, and got to my feet. It seemed such a shame to leave the fire, but I snagged my gear and sloped after him.

We met up with the others in the forecourt—Teagan had evidently suggested a show of solidarity—and I surveyed the faces of the people I had come to call companions… people who, a month or so ago, I'd have flung myself in the mud to avoid, had I met them in the market square. Well, that was a little harsh. Maybe not all of them.

Morrigan, certainly, with her strange, feral stare and aura of untamed confidence, would have terrified me. She still unnerved me now; I couldn't fault what she'd done for us, yet I couldn't quite trust her, either. Sten, I would probably have hidden at the sight of, because qunari mercenaries in Denerim usually worked for the sort of people no one wanted to be noticed by. I'd never given a moment's thought to their culture, their individuality… and I wanted to ask him so many things. I should be afraid of him, I supposed, and yet I wasn't anymore, whatever the truth of the things he'd done. Unsettled, maybe, but not afraid.

Leliana, perhaps, might not have scared me, had I seen her in her gentle, Chantry mode. Of course, that slight hint of otherness trailed beneath even her calmest moments; I knew that now I'd seen her armed and fighting. She was like a flame: bright and pure until the draught caught her, when she burned jagged, quick, and unpredictable.

And as for Alistair… I was a little ashamed to admit it, even to myself, but I doubted I'd have noticed him at all. He'd just have been another shem, wouldn't he? Whether I'd seen him in civvies or armour, I wouldn't have looked—eyes down, head bent, keep moving—and he wouldn't have looked at me. Strange, I thought, how the prejudices were there on both sides, albeit in different ways. I'd never seen that until now… but I was glad of his presence, and even his tuneless whistling as we walked out into the dusk.

Maethor had trotted out to join us as well, which I guessed meant Connor was asleep, still under the aegis of Wynne and the other two mages taking shifts to care for him. I tousled my hound's ears as we started off down the gritty slope towards the village, Lloyd's tavern, and the promise of watered-down ale and merriment.

An elf, travelling with three shems and a Northern Giant, adopted by her very own mabari… _that_, I would never have seen coming.


	18. Chapter 18

_A/N: It took a while, but I got off my butt! This is the final chapter of Volume Two - my thanks and eternal gushy gobbets of wuv to all those who have been reading, reviewing, commenting and following Meri's story. There is, of course, a lot more to come. Volume Three will be going up in the next few days (you've been warned), and you can, as ever, also read more on my blog (link in my profile). _

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

* * *

The whole of Redcliffe practically crackled with energy, as if the rumours already abounding since our return from the Tower could be seen on the air, like fleet streaks of fire. Torches burned along the paths and, as we got down to the ridge, with the entire village laid out at our feet, I could see the busy throngs of activity in between the gutted houses and dismantled barricades.

The chantry had its doors wide open—charity, relief, and the glow of candlelight in the softening night—and people were still coming and going, carrying bundles of clothes or furniture. The shrouded band of the lake, blurry in the encroaching darkness, was haloed by a thin glimmer from the rising sickle of the moon. It seemed a long while since we'd been on the water, though I couldn't say I missed it.

Lloyd's tavern was packed. Most of the militia boys were in, along with Wulff, Elwyn, and any other man who'd been able to sneak away from the business of patching his home back together. It was women's work, I supposed, the tending to the sick and injured and ruined. It usually was.

For now, the bodies had been burned, the news from the castle was good—at least in part—and those who were left needed to throw themselves into the proof of life.

A thick waft of hot air hit us as we entered the inn, along with the mingled smells of unwashed bodies, grease, sweat, beer and wood smoke. A gale of raucous laughter sounded, and I could make out someone playing a fiddle; rough, squawky notes that, just for a moment, sounded like home.

Sten gave a small, disapproving sigh. I didn't know what soldiers did for fun where he came from, but it probably wasn't this.

"Ugh." Morrigan curled her lip. "And how long are we expected to stay here?"

"You didn't have to come," Alistair said airily.

"True. Although I admit to a certain curiosity… I wish to see whether ale can, in fact, make you even _more_ stupid."

He snorted. "Probably. At least we'll all have fun finding out, won't we?"

"That," Morrigan said dryly, "I sincerely doubt."

Leliana sighed and shot me a quick grin. "Well, looks like everything's back to normal, then, doesn't it?"

I chuckled. "Mm. It's almost restful, don't you think?"

She laughed and, following on behind the repetitive rhythms of that constant bickering, we edged our way through the crowd. She, of course, was greeted with cheers—even blind drunk, the people of Redcliffe knew their flame-haired Orlesian she-devil—and the same expansive acceptance was extended to the rest of us. These were, after all, the men we'd fought beside, the men whose homes and lives we'd defended. It was as near to belonging as I'd felt in a long while.

Even Lloyd greeted us with genial effusiveness, those great meaty hands spread wide, and a buttery smile smeared over his face.

"Well, look who's back! Heroes of the hour! Now, what can ol' Lloyd get you, eh?"

Not that there was much choice. We were given greasy mugs full of watered-down ale that smelled of wet bracken and sawdust, and a rickety table in the corner nearest the fire, where the heat baked our faces and a sweaty press of bodies crowded between us and the bar, all elbows and sloshing mugs. The redheaded waitress with the tired smile hovered nearby, carrying a wooden tray and a pitcher as she provided refills and, occasionally, used the tray to hit over-friendly militiamen with.

"You keep yer grubby paws to yerself, Lanner Cartwright! I know your sister!"

I smiled to myself, and raised my mug when Alistair declared a toast to Redcliffe, and to the arl. The beer was foul, but that didn't matter too much after the first couple of swigs; it was bad enough to actually numb the tongue.

The man with the fiddle—a bearded fellow with a crooked nose and a heavily patched leather jerkin—started up a new tune, and I watched Leliana tapping her fingers absently against the side of her mug, following the song. A look of slightly distant sadness touched her face, and I wondered what she was thinking about… and where it was that her memory wandered.

Maethor was lying under the table, a dead weight on my feet. The waitress had slipped him a beef bone from the kitchen, and he was more than happily occupied, gnawing away at it.

"So… Sten," Alistair said conversationally, eyeing the qunari over the second half of his pint. "You said you were in the army."

Sten gave a single nod of that great, square-jawed head. "I am."

His hand almost encircled his mug; mine barely reached halfway around. I watched the way he sat there, unapologetically dominating the space around him, easily the most foreign thing in the room.

"Why would the qunari send soldiers here, then?"

That startlingly bright gaze swivelled towards Alistair, and Sten regarded him with something approaching weary resignation.

"The antaam are the eyes, hands, and mouth of the qunari," he said, his voice a low rumble that swept effortlessly beneath the noise of the tavern. "We are how my people know the world."

Alistair frowned as he took another mouthful of his ale. "Doesn't that make your view a bit… skewed?"

Sten's eyebrow arched almost imperceptibly. "Compared to what?"

"Huh… good point."

I stifled a smile. Whatever else he was, Sten certainly didn't fit the idea of the evil, bloodthirsty savage that the Chantry liked to project onto his people.

"What does anyone truly know of the world?" he asked, apparently rhetorically, as he lifted his mug to his lips. "The world changes. We change. The antaam observe what we can, just as you do."

He drank down a third of the mug in one draught, then lowered it with equal slow, careful precision, and replaced it on the greasy table.

Alistair looked confused, and opened his mouth to speak, but I cut across him.

"I think what Alistair meant is, what was the purpose of the… antaam," I tried, rolling the peculiar, alien word around my mouth, "coming to Ferelden?"

Sten glanced at me, face impassive and eyes hard as rocks. "To answer a question."

I wondered if this was his way of having fun at our expense, but I didn't plan on giving up quite that easily.

"All right. What was the question?"

"The arishok asked, 'What is the Blight?'. By his curiosity, I am now here."

Alistair lowered his mug and frowned over the rim. "What's an arishok?"

"The one," Sten supplied wearily, "who commands the antaam—the body of the qunari."

"Oh. Right."

"And did you find the answer to his question?" I asked, both genuinely curious and intrigued by the unusual fact of Sten actually speaking whole sentences at once. "What was it?"

He looked stiffly at me, his expression a taut, tight-drawn thing, as unflinching as a mirror.

"Were you not at Ostagar when the army was overwhelmed?"

I winced. Stupid question, then. As if I didn't know what the Blight was, what it could yet be…. The laughter and the celebration all around us felt hollow, for a moment, and full of mockery.

"I— Yes," I said meekly. "I see."

Our table turned silent then, as ghosts began to crowd at our shoulders. Leliana cleared her throat and looked enquiringly at Sten.

"So, will you need to report back to your commander?"

"Yes."

He drained the rest of his mug and set it back on the scarred wood. I'd barely drunk an inch of my beer.

"I suppose," Leliana went on, "it will be a very long journey for you. Will—"

"Not really."

She stopped, drawing in her upper lip and giving a small, thwarted huff before she shook her head and addressed her ale. She took a sip, pulled a face, and then smiled brightly at the rest of us.

"So, who's sleeping in the castle tonight? Bann Teagan's offered us the use of their guest accommodation… despite the mess."

I snorted. "Not bloody likely. I'll take my chances in the chantry, thank you."

I cringed even as I said it, hearing the way it slipped out, full of the back end of the market and grubby alienage vowels. I could almost feel the hard flick of Father's thumb across the back of my head, and his voice sharply reminding me to open my mouth properly when I spoke… and not to cuss. Sometimes, it seemed like, every day, I was growing further away from the girl he'd raised.

Alistair grinned. "Ooh, chicken, are we?"

I swigged my sour ale. "No, just… thinking about everything that— well, y'know. Anyway, it's…."

I trailed off, shrugged, and tried to hide the sudden twinge of embarrassment. It was true that I'd rather be down among the destitute and wounded than up there in the cold, stone halls of a nobleman's castle, still echoing with the whispers of demons—not to mention other unpleasant associations—but I didn't really want to admit it. Had we been alone, I might have made a crack about bedding down in the kennels, but I wasn't sure what was off-limits regarding the stories of his childhood, and what people did or did not know.

Besides, there was something else that needed to be said.

"Thing is, though…." I raised my mug, and looked to Sten and Morrigan. "I haven't said this yet. Not properly, but… thank you. Both of you. What you did saved Connor's life."

I meant it as an honest, open gesture, but I suspected it came out as a little mawkish. Morrigan sneered.

"Indeed. So the child may be taken into the Circle and indoctrinated, confined…. Yes, I am sure we did him a great service."

Alistair spluttered on his ale. "What? You're really going to sit there and say you think he'd be better off dead?"

"Freedom has its price," she snapped. "I can think of nothing worse than being corralled like cattle, templar fools watching my every move…."

_You don't know what it was like. The templars were watching… always _watching_…. The magic was a means to an end. _

I blinked, pushing the memories away. Sten snorted, and Morrigan glared at him.

"Oh, and I imagine you have an opinion? The qunari _do _have mages, do they not?"

"Not the same as you," he said darkly, as the redheaded waitress emerged to top up our mugs. "You would not understand."

"Not understand?" she echoed, the words taking on a brittle, taunting pitch. "Truly? Is it mental capacity that you believe I lack? Or are you worried I will sympathize with my so-called brethren?"

"Hmph." Sten grunted. "Take your pick."

I glanced nervously towards the door, wondering just how fast I could run if a fight broke out. Whatever had happened during our journey to the Tower, the tension between the two of them was palpable and bitter. The waitress smiled blithely as she filled our mugs, and tossed Alistair a friendly wink. He turned very slightly pink.

Morrigan laughed, and it was like the sound of a mirror shattering.

"Is that supposed to make me angry, Sten? Perhaps you should tell us what your… _civilised_ mind thinks the proper treatment for a mage."

He set his mug down and stared evenly at her.

"In my land, mages are beasts in the shape of men. No more than this. We keep them penned and leashed, and we cut out their tongues, so they may not cause harm."

A small, cold pool of silence spilled out over the table, broken only by the _glup_ of ale sloshing into mugs, and the faint click of Morrigan's fingernails on the tabletop. The militiamen were still drinking, talking, laughing… but all the sound seemed to collapse in on itself, eaten up by the sheer ferocity of the still, dangerous quiet emanating from the witch.

The redheaded waitress made herself scarce, holding up her wooden tray like a shield. Alistair's brow furrowed.

"You… _pen_ them?" he asked, aghast, lifting his second pint. "What, in—"

"They are controlled," Sten said simply. "It is better that way. 'As a fish stranded by the tide knows the air, or a drowning man knows the sea, so does a mage know magic.'"

Morrigan looked fit to actually implode. Her pale cheeks had begun to darken, and she was staring at Sten as if that molten gold gaze could truly burn through his flesh.

I was still trying to envisage the cutting out of the tongue part, and wondering whether my earlier conclusion regarding vile and bloody savages hadn't been a little premature. It occurred to me that someone ought to say something, ought to step in between the two of them before there was bloodshed, and Leliana did so with the utmost grace.

"I suppose all things are dangerous in excess," she said carefully. "But magic is not entirely evil. It is as the Chantry says: magic may serve man, but not rule him. As long as—"

"Some things come only in excess." Sten took a mouthful of his ale. "There is no such thing as a little drowning, is there? And magic is horror and perversion. It is a sword with no hilt."

Abruptly, Morrigan placed her palms on the table and rose, straight as a rush.

"I appear to be suddenly tired," she said flatly. "Enjoy your… carousing."

With a rustle of feathers and the flap of robes, she turned and stalked from the tavern. I was faintly impressed at the way the sea of drunken militiamen parted for her—probably without even realising they'd done it—and supposed that, had Sten wanted a display of the control a mage could show, he couldn't have asked for a better one than that.

Alistair sucked a breath in over his teeth. "Wow…. You're not remotely afraid of being turned into a frog, then?"

The qunari looked nonplussed.

"Someone should probably go after her," Leliana said doubtfully, though she made no move to get up, and gave Sten a reproachful glance. "That was not terribly kind, you know. The Chantry says—"

"Your Chantry says many things. That does not make them true. If humans looked for wisdom more often beyond its walls, there might be a chance they would find it."

Well, he was on fine form this evening. I supposed this might be why he didn't talk all that much. Leliana looked as if she'd just been slapped with a wet fish. Alistair appeared to choke on his ale, halfway between stifled laughter and serious spluttering.

"There is _some _wisdom in the Chant, you must admit," she said stiffly.

"Oh? Tell me, where is the wisdom in crying out for a derelict god to save you?"

"The Maker is _not_—"

"I'm sure Sten means we must accept responsibility for ourselves," I said quickly, nudging Leliana with my elbow. "Even if you can't change your fate completely, you can't sit around complaining about it, either. You believe that, don't you? Or else you'd never have left Lothering."

Her expression crumpled, and a small frown pinched that porcelain brow. Across the room, a knot of lairy militiamen broke into a rousing chorus of _Polly Was A Sailor's Girl_, complete with all the dirty words.

"But—"

"My people have a tale," Sten announced. The great, guttering fire, belching dry, dirty heat from its wide hearth, painted shadows over his rough-hewn face and—without waiting for assent or comment—he began to speak. "A great ashkaari, during his travels, came upon a village in the desert. There, he found the houses crumbling. The earth was so dry and dead that the people tied themselves to each other for fear a strong wind would carry the ground from under their feet. Nothing grew there except the bitter memory of gardens."

My mug stopped partway to my lips and I exchanged a glance with Leliana. Of all things, I hadn't really expected Sten to sound… poetic.

"The ashkaari stopped the first man he saw, and asked, 'What happened here?'. 'Drought came, and the world changed from prosperity to ruin,' the man told him. The askhaari replied: 'Change it back.'"

Alistair snorted. "I hope the villager slapped him one!"

Leliana shot him a stern glance. "Shhh! Sorry, Sten. Please, go on. I don't think I have ever heard a qunari story before… it is very interesting."

He gave her a look that, stiff and impenetrable as ever, seemed to be a slightly tinged with disapproval. I wondered if the qunari thought of their philosophy as stories, and how they usually responded to the condescension of foreigners… but I didn't say anything.

"The villager became angry then," Sten continued, thick fingers wrapping themselves around his mug. "He believed the ashkaari mocked him, for no one could simply change the world on a whim… to which the ashkaari answered, 'then change yourself. You make your own world.'"

"I like that," Alistair observed, with a swig of his ale. "Can I make one with no darkspawn in?"

Sten ignored him. Leliana nodded slowly, though her mouth was drawn into a tight bow, and she didn't look convinced.

"But," she said doubtfully, "sometimes people need faith in a higher power to change. Would you deny them that?"

"Sometimes people use faith as an excuse _not_ to change," Sten replied. He shrugged, those massive shoulders shifting like boulders beneath the heavily adapted leather arming jack that now served as clothing, in place of the rags he'd worn since we found him in that cage. The seams kept threatening to burst every time he moved too suddenly… we'd have to see about getting him outfitted properly, I supposed. "Believe in whatever you like: absent creators, or whimsical gods. Follow prophets, or ashkaari, or omens in the earth and sky. You will find wisdom only if you seek it."

"You… you have given me a lot to think about," Leliana said, peering into her ale with a slightly troubled frown.

A huge cheer went up from the militia as _Polly_ entered the fourth verse—the one about the goat, the monkey, and the coil of rope—and there suddenly seemed to be something so ridiculous about sitting here discussing philosophy and religion, with a squawky fiddle scraping notes in the background and the smell of sweat and sour beer rising on the heat of the fire.

I settled to drinking my pint, and the slight light-headedness that I wasn't really used to crept up on me. I'd got down to the bottom third of the mug, where odd, slightly chewy bits floated in the soupy liquid, when Leliana made her excuses and bade us goodnight. Sten followed not long after, determining that we would have to leave early if we intended to be on the road in good time.

"Absolutely," Alistair said, with such solemn sincerity that the sarcasm positively dripped off the word.

Sten gave him a long, dry look, then made a dissatisfied noise in the back of his throat, and nodded to me.

"Good night, Sten," I managed, raising my mug.

He walked out looking stone cold sober, and I was idly wondering how much it would take to actually get him drunk when Alistair's foot prodded my ankle.

"S'…whassit… creepy, isn't it?" He nodded to the door as it swung shut in the qunari's wake. "Sten. Way he looks at you, with those _eyes. _And he's so quiet, for someone so big…!"

The militiamen were still singing, still cheering; it rang in my ears, the sound and the noise smearing together across the hot, stuffy, vivid shadows of the inn. I stifled a belch.

"True. It's… unsettling."

"Yet he doesn't seem quite so bad as the Chantry tells us." Alistair drained the last of his pint and, setting the mug down, held up a finger to count off his points. "His philosophy is supposed to be vile and evil, yet he seems so reasonable… _yet,_" he added, counting off another finger, "he killed all those people. Doesn't even deny it. Doesn't that bother you?"

"Mm." I shrugged, uncertain and feeling rather rootless. "He seems to regret it, though."

"Huh. Does his regret even mean the same as it would for us? I don't know. And all that stuff about wisdom…."

I glanced up, aware of our friendly waitress hoving back into view, pitcher in hand.

"Fair 'nough," I admitted. "I don't understand the qunari sense of… thing. Honour. Philos… philosophy. But he's dedicated, I'll give him that."

Alistair nodded. "True. Dedicated. And creepy."

I chuckled. The waitress took the opportunity of our table being emptier now to lean forward while she filled up our mugs, and Alistair smiled genially at her bosom. She grinned at him.

"There you are, now. On the house, Lloyd says. Nothing's too good for our brave Warden… know what I mean?"

We had names for girls like her back home. Still, I was mellow and fuzzy enough just to laugh softly, especially when Alistair's smile blurred a bit at the edges and, frowning in faint confusion, he waved a finger in my general direction.

"Wardens," he corrected. "There's… I mean, I'm not the only… er. Yeah."

The woman shook her head ruefully and straightened up, one red-knuckled hand propped on her hip.

"'Course you're not, love. You drink up now, eh? The pair of you," she added, glancing at me briefly before she disappeared back into the throng.

I looked down dubiously at the topped-up mug. My second full pint, Alistair's third. We'd probably had enough. Under the table, Maethor had gone to sleep with his head on the remnants of the beef bone, twisted around so that his belly was exposed to the warmth of the flames. He emitted a strong doggy odour, not to mention the occasionally growl in his sleep, somewhere between the wheezy snores.

"I… you know, I don't know why people do that," Alistair said, peering into the depths of his mug. "I mean, there's two of us. S'not like I'm the only Grey Warden. Which is good," he added thoughtfully. "_Really_ good. But… it's odd. All right, so we haven't got a uniform, but all the same, they shouldn't just—"

I snorted, almost getting ale up my nose. He couldn't possibly have lived _that_ sheltered a life.

"It's because I'm an elf."

"What? But…."

I couldn't help smiling. He looked so genuinely confused. I set my mug back down on the pitted table and shook my head.

"You don't see it, do you?" I lowered my voice, glancing around us at all the red, smiling faces, sweaty with relief and exhilaration. "All these people… all the places we go. It's like in Lothering. First look, and they think I'm your servant or something."

Alistair's eyebrows shot up, and he almost choked on his ale.

"What? No, I—"

"Elf," I repeated, finding a perverse enjoyment in his appalled expression.

"And that doesn't bother you?"

I reached for my drink and took a long swallow. It really was swill; Lloyd had obviously been watering the kegs so long people round here barely noticed anymore.

"Not really," I said at last. "It could be worse."

"Worse?" His voice, though roughened a bit by beer and fatigue, took on that familiar sarcastic twang. "Worse than people judging you by what you are, treating you like some kind of second-class…."

He stopped to belch, and I bit back on the words already bubbling on my tongue. He didn't understand, but then there was no reason why he should, was there?

For a moment, I thought about saying that passing for a lackey was better than putting up with the casual cruelty reserved for alienage-dwellers, or the kind of prejudice that came with shems seeing an elf wield authority… but that would have meant explaining things which I really didn't want to discuss. I didn't want to talk about bruised faces and bare tables, open sewers and families who shared one pair of boots between them. I didn't want to make him look at me like that—every glance darkened with knowledge of the things I'd done, the places that had made me, and the tattered shreds of absurd pride that I still clung to, however ragged they'd become.

Anger started to itch in me then… gnarled, self-righteous anger at the fact he'd made me ashamed of who I was, where I came from, and— well, _he_ hadn't, had he? It was one thing I couldn't blame on Alistair, however much I wished I could.

"Doesn't matter, anyway," I said, a trifle brusquely. "M' a woman, too."

"That," Alistair said, smirking blearily at me from behind his pint, "had not escaped me. I'm not as dumb as people think, y'know."

I frowned. "I mean, they wouldn't treat me equally anyway. People. Even without… thing."

I gesticulated vaguely in the region of my ears. My hair had dried flat and frizzy, combed back and tucked behind them as neatly as I could manage, though the shorter bits at the front still clung stubbornly to my cheekbones, like a fringe I was trying to grow out. With a trace of self-consciousness, I reached up and brushed the hair aside, glancing at him across the greasy, stuffy miasma of the tavern.

It was true enough, though among humans my gender was less of an issue than my race. Odd, that, I supposed. Elves couldn't join the military, or even the city guard back home, and there were carefully scribed laws in place to keep us from carrying weapons, owning property… having any rights or autonomy at all. Yet my people—we who had so much barred from us—seemed to actually work at segregating ourselves even further. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it was true, wasn't it? All those notions of pride, morality, and propriety that we so doggedly clung to… they were just as stultifying as the shems' ugly rules.

I blinked, and tried to wash those thoughts away with ale. That was my upbringing, the rigid core of what I knew to be clean and right and decent, and I should not be so eager to watch it erode in front of my eyes.

I thought of the ride from Denerim, with Duncan, and how I'd been so mortified at making camp alone with a man. A _human _man. Mortified, too, at the fact I'd had to bunch my skirt up to sit astride the horse, and bare my legs (or at least my winter smallclothes). It seemed almost laughable now, especially since I'd grown used to living in breeches, and yet I remembered those dark, damp nights on the road—the first time I'd ever been outside the city—when Duncan and I had sat before a tiny campfire, and he'd told me of the elven Warden, Garahel, and how he had ended the Fourth Blight.

So… great things were possible, perhaps. In legends.

In the cold, muddy reality of life, I knew what people would think… what _I _would have thought, in their shoes. At first glance, I was just another elven servant, following on after her master. Back home, they were a copper a dozen in the market; merchants' girls, wearing gathered bodices and pleated skirts, like shem women, and trading in smiles and favours. That's what they'd think, wasn't it? All these people. They'd see Alistair before they saw me—just like Bann Teagan did—and I'd be nothing more than the Grey Warden's lackey… or possibly his whore.

That thought was sudden, unexpected and violent, punching its way into my head like a fist.

Heat rose in my cheeks, and I was grateful for the fire and the stagnant warmth of the room. The smells of tallow candles, cheap ale, and human sweat, of grease, wood polish, metal, leather… all these things pooled around me, and I knocked back the rest of my beer too fast. My throat burned, my stomach clenched, and I peered at Alistair, watching him frown moodily into his mug.

We fell silent, drinking and thinking, a little pool of morose quiet in the raucous chaos.

"You know," Alistair said, after a while. "Maybe this isn't the best time to be thinking about this, but I've something to ask you."

I quirked an eyebrow, my mouth full of ale. "Mmn?"

He probably wasn't drunk enough for the question to be terribly embarrassing, I supposed, and if it _was_, I could always pretend I was too drunk to answer.

"We-eell," he said slowly, "you know, in the Fade, right? When—"

"I know." I nodded briskly, not really wishing to revisit the subject.

"No, listen…. You, uh, you saw the whole… y'know. With my—"

"Yes, I remember."

I struggled to shelve the dream-memories of Father, and Shianni, and a beautiful sunny day in a place that was a little too nice to be home… and I struggled to forget a picture-perfect cottage with a blue-painted door, and a lovely woman at the stove.

I glanced at Alistair, mildly concerned. He'd drive himself mad if he kept dwelling on it, I thought. Reaching for dreams is one thing, until you stretch too far and fall flat on your face.

He was chewing the inside of his lip thoughtfully, and frowning.

"Well, it… it—"

"It was just dreams," I said quietly. "Just hopes."

"No." He shook his head. "I mean, yes, but… I actually _do_ have a sister. Well, a half-sister, anyway."

"Wait, what? She's real? G—" My mug stilled en route to my lips as I fumbled for the name, the label attached to the dream-creature I'd thought was nothing more than Alistair's hopeless fantasy. "Goldanna?"

He nodded. "Mm. I never knew about her. I don't think she knew about me, either, but then they _did _keep my birth a secret, and our mother died just after I was born, so…." He shrugged. "After I became a Grey Warden, I tried to find out more about her and her family, and that's when I discovered Goldanna. She's still alive. In Denerim."

Across the bar, the militiamen's latest drinking song roared into a mighty chorus, and someone fell off their chair. I slugged back another mouthful of my ale, mainly to distract myself from the shiny-eyed, hopeful look on Alistair's face.

"That's… well, that's good, isn't it?" I said, swallowing hard. "Have you contacted her?"

"No." He shook his head ruefully. "I thought about writing, but I didn't have the nerve. And then we were called down to Ostagar and…."

He shrugged. I did my best to look sympathetic, and realised I felt rather dizzy. Annoying, really. Perhaps the ale wasn't _that_ watered down.

"She's the only real family I have left," Alistair said mournfully, rubbing his thumb along the handle of his mug. "At least, the only family not also mixed up in the whole royal thing. So, I guess I was wondering, if we're heading there… maybe…?"

The heat and the colour seemed to seep out of the world, and left it pale and curled at the edges, like a book set too near to the fire.

"You want to find her," I said numbly.

"Mm. I've just been thinking that… well, you know. With the Blight coming and everything, I don't know if I'll ever get another chance. Maybe I can help her, warn her about the danger. I don't know."

He shrugged. It was typical of him, that shift from needy hopefulness to vague, desperate chivalry, and it made me feel so inferior. That knotted, mixed up mess of anger, fear, anxiety, and Maker knew what else that lived inside me started to thresh anew, and I tried to pretend that I wasn't scared… that the very thought of walking into Denerim didn't frighten me to death. All the ghosts I'd left behind, and all the spectres of what might await… and now this, too.

"All right," I said, because Alistair deserved that much. "We'll try to find her while we're there."

"Could we? I'd appreciate that." He smiled sadly. "If something happened, and I never went to at least see her, I don't know if I could forgive myself. She lives in the market district somewhere… I have an address. Not all that far from the alienage, I think."

Dread pressed in against my chest, a cold and crushing weight. He'd just assumed, hadn't he? Assumed I'd go home again, that there were people in the city who missed me… and who were there to be hugged and smiled at, as safe as they'd ever been.

I swallowed the last of my ale, with no little difficulty, and nodded.

"Mm. Yes. Sure."

Alistair seemed to realise he'd said something that had struck at me. He looked as if he wanted to ask some question or other, but he didn't say anything, and the silence between us—so small and insignificant against all the noise in the tavern—felt hot and oppressive.

I could talk about it, I supposed. The truth was meant to be a balm. And I _should_ tell him. All right, so we were more likely to have trouble with Loghain and his bounty on the Wardens than we were with my crimes against Arl Urien's family, but… that wasn't the point.

Of course, I _could_ have said something back in the privy chamber, when Teagan and the arlessa were happily laying this burden on us—chattering like magpies, as if every sentence didn't contain an impossible task—and I hadn't. I should, I told myself, say something… but I didn't.

Instead, I pushed my mug away and stood up, trying to ignore the slight wobble in my knees and the pitching of the grubby wooden floor. The place was stifling, muggy, and still busy, even now.

"I— I'm gonna… gonna call it a… thingy," I said vaguely.

"Hm?"

"Night." I waved fuzzily in the general direction of the door. "Call it a night. Get some… rest."

I banged my knee on the chair, splayed an outstretched palm to the greasy table, and tottered a bit on my way to the door. A couple of militiamen raised their tankards to me as I passed, and I smiled weakly, really not wanting to be drawn back into anything. The door seemed a very long way away. Maethor groaned sleepily, got to his feet, and padded after me.

Outside, it had grown dark. A few faint stars twinkled in the deepening sky. I leaned against the tavern's wall and took a deep breath, relishing the cool, clear air. Couldn't get enough of it after all the dank, corrupted, enclosed places we'd been. I should probably head back to the chantry, I supposed, and get some rest. Ought to leave early in the morning, make a good start. Long journey, and all that.

I closed my eyes at the sound of the tavern door opening. The brief blast of hot air, the roar of voices raised in song… and that particular silence of Alistair's.

The door closed behind him, muffling the noise from within, and I knew without looking that he was coming to lean on the wall beside me. I didn't want his questions, or his sympathy.

"Are you all ri—"

"Mm. Aren't you going up to the castle?"

Alistair shrugged. "Maybe."

His insouciance annoyed me, at that moment, more than I had imagined it could. My mind filled with pictures no more real than his make-believe cottage, with the blue windowboxes and the chubby-cheeked children, and I didn't know why not understanding—not knowing why the demon had made that dream for him, instead of a castle with pennants and high, straight walls—should make me so angry.

I had no right to know, I supposed. The glimpses I'd had into the dreams of others were just glimpses. They gave me no privileges, united us by no common bonds. Not really. But still… hadn't he ever been happy in this place? For a boy cast away so easily by the man who'd taken him in, Alistair bore such deep, rigid loyalty to Arl Eamon, and I didn't know what to make of it… or of _him_. There were too many contradictions, too many mixed signals and, so very, very stupidly, I wasn't sure I was ready to forgive him for the accident of his birth.

Alistair cleared his throat. "So, what—"

"Why did you keep it a secret?" I demanded. "About Mar— about your father, I mean."

Not like me to snap so abruptly, to use a question for a weapon. But I wanted it to cut, I realised. I wanted it to sting, and to push him so far away from asking anything of his own.

Alistair said nothing at first. I stared down over the bare, red rocks, the mica and pebbles in the paths glittering in the dim, eerie light. I didn't feel properly drunk, not really. Just so incredibly tired.

"You could have told me before," I said, arch and reproachful, and scowling at the rocks as if it was their fault. "After the battle. You didn't."

He exhaled slowly. "Well, you never asked."

"That's cheap."

I wanted to give him a withering, furious glare but, when I turned to do so, he just looked defeated and rather miserable. The shadows clung to his face, making him seem older somehow, his eyes cloaked in the darkness.

"All right, then. Would you believe me if I said I didn't think it was important?"

"You're the son of a king!" I protested, surprising myself with the strength of the indignance in my voice. "You're one of—"

_One of them_. Was that what I meant? I wasn't sure I even knew, and I was glad I'd bitten the word off before I sounded like a complete fool.

Alistair snorted. "At best, I'm the son of an indiscreet man and a star-struck chamber maid. At worst… well. I don't know which is more true."

"Oh."

That shut me up. I hadn't thought of it like that, I realised, but _he_ must have done. Plenty of times, over the years. Of course, I knew all too well what rights some noblemen thought they had to a woman, and I saw no reason that Maric should have been any different. Strip away the half-truths and hyperboles, and all idols are flesh at their core.

"Anyway," Alistair said quietly, "I'm illegitimate. Unrecognised. It was only an issue because the arl's household knew, and if anyone _had _mentioned it… well, I didn't want you to hear it from anyone else. I… I didn't want you to think I'd lied, although I guess part of me did kind of like you not knowing."

"Huh?" I scoffed incredulously. "You… what, you _enjoyed_ not telling me?"

There was steel in my voice; I heard it, squared up and spoiling for a fight, but Alistair didn't rise to it.

"People treat me differently when they know," he said wearily. "Suddenly, I'm the Bastard Prince, instead of just being _me_. I suppose I was afraid of that. I wanted you to like me for who I am, and not… you know."

A great, clanging silence followed those words. The salt-stained breeze that came up from the lake, carrying the scent of smoked fish and creosote, brushed against my cheeks. I glanced at him, taking in the downcast eyes and slumped shoulders, and sighed.

Alistair looked up, meeting my gaze uncertainly. "That probably sounds stupid, doesn't it? I bet—"

"No." I shook my head. "It doesn't sound stupid at all. And I do, anyway."

"Hm?"

I leaned my head back against the rough wooden wall, spinning lightly on the sensation of being drunk, but not quite as drunk as I really wanted to be. I snorted, because at that moment all humans appeared to be complete fools.

"I do like you," I said, closing my eyes. "In spite of your blood."

It was true. I couldn't imagine having done any of it without him, and how much I valued his friendship—his loyalty, and the unwavering support he'd given me—only seemed to sink in then, all mixed up with the beer and the warm fuzziness of a long day finally ending.

I valued, I realised, the friendship of a human above almost everything else in the world. The absurdity of that tickled me, and a sleepy grin spread across my face.

"Oh." Alistair sounded genuinely surprised. "Really? I… oh. You see, I didn't know that."

I laughed. I wasn't entirely sure why, but it felt good.

"Come on," I said. "We should get some rest. Early start."

"Right."

I pushed away from the wall, wavering a little bit, and we headed back down the gritty slope—which seemed an awful lot steeper and more slippery than it had before—and towards the wide, welcoming doors of the chantry. More comfortable than another night under canvas, I supposed, and less intimidating than the castle.

I glanced at Alistair, who appeared to be concentrating extremely hard on not falling over as we made our way down to the village square, and wondered just what I saw when I looked at him. Not a bastard prince, certainly… though I did catch myself thinking of Cailan. Was there the whiff of similarity there? Same puppyish enthusiasm, perhaps, though Alistair's was coloured over with that dry humour; easily recognisable to me as the product of years which had not been so kind as they might. Not that he knew what a hard life really was, I reminded myself, ale lending me a certain degree of maudlin self-indulgence.

Anyway, they looked nothing alike. I remembered Cailan as bright and fair, all good cheekbones and clear blue eyes, like a heroic portrait waiting to happen. Alistair was… weathered, by comparison. His hair was a darker blond, his expression always an eighth of an inch from weary sarcasm, and his eyes were that very particular hazel, like a dark green flecked with gold.

I frowned, not entirely sure when I had made a note of that fact, and squinted muzzily at him, trying to ascertain whether I'd made it up or not. He looked at me curiously, cocked an eyebrow, and then grinned.

"What? Hey, are… are you drunk?"

"Hm? No! No," I protested, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. "Of course not. I… I don't drink to excess. I'm a respectabab— a respectable girl."

Alistair sniggered. "You are! You're _drunk_!"

"So are you," I pointed out, and he laughed—really laughed—as if it was the most acutely amusing thing anyone had ever said.

I got the giggles too and, by the time we reached the chantry, we were teetering along in an exaggerated pantomime of being quiet, stifling our laughter and making it worse by trying to do so.

There were still plenty of wounded, homeless, and terrified people in the chantry, which curbed our amusement a bit, and the sight of the gaggles of newly orphaned children under Mother Hannah's care was more rapidly sobering than any bucket of iced water.

I took the thin woollen blanket that was offered to me, and thanked the lay sister who directed us to the side chapels currently serving as shelters. Men to one side, women to the other… and everything quiet, but for the coughs and moans of the injured, or the piping voices of little ones who couldn't sleep for the bad dreams and empty spaces beside them.

I bade Alistair goodnight beneath the blankly benevolent gaze of the chantry's dark windows, admitting thin slips of moonlight to augment the torches, and he gave me a small, solemn smile.

"No dreams, right?" he whispered.

"No dreams," I promised, not sure whether he was talking about the Fade, or the darkspawn.

"Good. Night, then."

"Night."

I watched him go, listening to the sound of familiar footsteps on the stone.

The side chapel was crowded, but I settled myself in a spot between an old woman, already snoring, and a young girl with a baby in her lap, wrapped in a green shawl. When sleep finally did take me, it was a deep and effortless slumber, and it left no footprints of memories behind it.

_**~o~O~o~**_

The morning came unexpectedly quickly and, when I woke, the chapel was a great deal emptier. Sunlight streamed through the beautiful windows, the coloured glass sending a dozen different, dappled shades of pink, green, blue and orange scattering across my vision.

"Ow," I declared, shut my eyes again and, with a groan, flung an arm across my face.

A foot prodded me unceremoniously in the ribs.

"Come on."

I recognised the voice as Alistair's, laced with an unholy cheerfulness, and I groaned again.

"Time to get going," he said brightly. "There's actual breakfast before we leave, with bacon and kippers and _everything_. I could get used to this heroing business."

"Ohhh…." My stomach lurched. "Eating? They want us to _eat_?"

I peered out from under the crook of my elbow. It was still horribly bright, and he was grinning at me, haloed by spinning, searing beams of light. A smell distressingly reminiscent of smoked fish and lard was coming from somewhere nearby, and my gut roiled again.

"_Urrrrrgh_…."

"Huh. That sister said you were dead to the world. Come on… we'll get something greasy down you, and you'll feel better in no time. It's not even as if you had _that_ much to drink."

"Elf," I muttered, both defence and explanation as, eyes shut tight, I held out my other arm and let Alistair pull me to my feet.

There was less of me than there was of him and, for all the similarities, elven bodies were different to humans. Less body fat equated to greater sensitivity to the cold… and alcohol, to name but two weaknesses. Still, once I was up and the world stopped spinning a little bit, things weren't quite as bad. I even ventured to peer at my friend, and had the satisfaction of seeing he was a bit bleary-eyed, even if the sod was able to cope with it better than me.

"Kippers?" he asked innocently.

I clenched my teeth and growled between them: "Bastard."

"Hey… that's _royal_ bastard to you."

"Very well," I said, my tongue thick and apparently furry. "Lead on… my prince."

Alistair scowled. "Oh, yes. Hilarious."

I grinned, which made my face hurt, and followed him outside.

It had been a rush getting everything ready and—though the people who'd helped set us on our way would have never have admitted it—we were taking a lot from Redcliffe, and for very little coin. Bann Teagan had settled or promised to settle plenty of debts on our behalf, but there was the armour, the new boots, the supplies… even proper canvas tents, stitched out of old sailcloth and waxed against the weather. There were things I thought of as luxuries, too: a couple of fur pelts, for warmth, oilcloth bedrolls… finer things than I'd ever had back home. We were still travelling light, but we had enough for our needs, and that was a pleasant change from the journey so far, although it didn't ease any of the worries I had about the direction we were headed in, or the tasks we had before us.

Ser Perth and a few of his men—including one Ser Donal, whom Alistair apparently knew, I gathered from his time with the templars—had passed on what little knowledge they had about Brother Gentivi. The short of it was 'not much', especially as those of the knights who'd been farthest away from Redcliffe had yet to return, or send word of whether they'd found him. The good brother, Ser Donal said, was something of a wanderer… and I finally realised why the name seemed familiar. He was the author of _In Pursuit of Knowledge: the Travels of a Chantry Scholar__, the dog-eared volume Mother had given me when I was a child, and from whose pages I'd cobbled together most of the preconceptions I had about the world outside Denerim… preconceptions which, in the main, had so far generally been wrong. _

_Privately, I suspected that did not bode too well for the insane business of recovering ancient relics but—seeing as hunting down the Urn of Sacred Ashes was probably no more insane than walking straight back into the lion's den that was Denerim—I said nothing. _After all, we'd received enough help and goodwill from Teagan and Isolde that we could hardly refuse to at least _try_ and find some information.

However, the journey would take a good couple of weeks, all told, and twin fangs of indecision and apprehension were still scoring me over whether we'd made the right choice.

I didn't much like the scattering of nervous, pale faces who'd come to see us off, either. The villagers crowded along the ridge, showing their support for their flame-haired hero—and, marginally, the rest of us—whom the faithful were already convinced would return victorious and save their arl. Leliana smiled graciously and pretended not to notice the attention, though I could see her basking in it like a lizard on a rock.

All told, we didn't really get going until mid-morning, tied up with all the preparations and farewells. Bann Teagan and Lady Isolde came down to the square to say goodbye, and the skies were blue and clear, a bright, early sun splitting the lake into glittering shards of gold.

Teagan shook my hand warmly, smiled at me, and said I was a good woman. I mumbled something vague, and blamed the combination of nausea and embarrassment I felt on my stinking hangover. For Sten and Morrigan, there were restrained and respectful nods; for Alistair, a firm grip of hands that dissolved into a rough, avuncular hug. Leliana, he bowed to… called her 'my lady', and wished that the Maker would guide her on the road. She dropped one of those graceful curtseys, despite wearing breeches, and looked at him from under her lashes as she thanked him and returned the words.

A lesson in how to handle the nobility, I supposed… had I been of a mind to learn it. Instead, I glanced at Wynne—all ready to go, with a brand new pack and countless bags of supplies about her person—and smiled thinly. I still had serious doubts about accepting the mage's offer to join us, but it wasn't as if we were in a position to pick and choose allies.

Maethor barked impatiently as we began to head out of the village, skittering on ahead of us up the ridge. _He _didn't have a pack to carry, I reflected, and wonderful though it was to at last be in possession of boots that fitted, and actual tents for sleeping in (Maker bless the people of Redcliffe, and all the merchants' stocks they'd plundered for us!), I wasn't relishing the prospect of marching hundreds of miles with all this weight on my back.

I took one last look at the gutted timber buildings and the scorched, parched red earth of the square. Even if we did, by some improbable odds, manage to succeed, who was to say Redcliffe would still even be here when we came back? It was all too easy to picture it gone, swallowed by the darkspawn.

However bright and clean the sky looked now—however strong the smell of salted and smoked fish, and however sharp the angles of the cliffs and the straight, tall trees—I couldn't help those thoughts. Oh, we were leaving here drenched with optimism, and burdened by the hopes and desperation of these people… but other, darker things weighed my feet down. We might have had a victory at our back, but we were surely heading towards certain defeat. There were too many things ahead of us, too many things to face in Denerim: not least Loghain… and, for me, the deeper shadows of my own past.

Yet I could not turn away. There was no running, no hiding… just the clean, simple knowledge that this was our duty, and it had to be fulfilled.

It was that which kept my steps faltering forwards that day, as we headed out along the cliff path. Behind us, the gulls swooped and screamed above the water, dark shapes against a crisp, clear sky.

I tilted my chin up, and fixed my gaze on the horizon.

###

* * *

_Once more, appreciative thanks to those reading and reviewing - in particular the awesome Gene Dark, whose support and insights into the City Elf mindset, and the murky world of Fereldan politics and intrigue, have been consistently invaluable. _

_Volume Three will follow as a separate story. As ever, links are in my profile. _

_~Anna _


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